


you must remember this

by wildcard_47



Category: Mad Men
Genre: 1940s, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Spies & Secret Agents, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:37:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 35,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcard_47/pseuds/wildcard_47
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"A recent promotion – and a significant shift up in his clearance level – meant Lane was now head of a team of several analysts tasked to work this particular case. He’d heard of her, naturally—true stories were rare, considering the nature of their work—but rumors still abounded, and the name was legend. <i>The Red Viper.</i>"</p><p>In which an analyst and an agent are assigned to work together, learn from each other, and find common ground in the most unexpected places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The two men took the freight elevator to the second subbasement and walked through a set of code-protected steel doors in order to arrive at the first level of the high security wing.

Lane had never been to this part of the SOE before, although his guide, a young blond lieutenant in a freshly pressed green uniform, was clearly familiar with procedure. As they moved through the halls, and passed several secretaries who were busy typing at their desks, writing, or carrying confidential files, the young man talked so quickly it was a wonder he wasn’t out of breath.

“Protocol dictates you keep all non-essential chatter to a minimum. Once Director Powell outlines the agent's upcoming mission, you will present additional information provided by your team for further review. Following your presentation, she will ask any pertinent questions. She is to be informed of any and all last-minute changes or accomodations to your report, no matter how insubstantial.”

They turned left down an unmarked hall, moving past the last of the stenography pool and away from the noise of the main room. A recent promotion – and a significant shift up in his clearance level – meant Lane was now head of a team of several analysts tasked to work this particular case.

“Anything else I ought to know?” he asked as they reached a door of what appeared to be a small conference room. He was caught up in thinking about a whirring machine from tactical services that had taken up half the last wall they’d passed, back in the main bullpen. What on earth did that do?

He’d heard _of_ _her_ , naturally—true stories were rare, considering the nature of their work—but rumors still abounded, and the name was legend. _The Red Viper._

_Courier for the Resistance._

_Killed a Nazi with her bare hands._

_Most wanted person in France._

“Yeah. Don’t piss her off,” said the lad, as he stopped by another unmarked doorway, and entered a five-digit code onto a keypad at his right hand. Lane accidentally glimpsed three of the numbers – _five two zero_ – but tried to put them out of his mind. Make a good impression, he urged himself mentally. Chin up, shoulders back.

“Sergeant Cosgrove,” Director Powell glanced toward them as they stepped into the room.

“Sirs. Agent Pryce is the last.” The lad promptly saluted, then moved aside and closed the door soon as he was dismissed.

Lane remained standing, and cleared his throat to speak.

“Erm. Hello.”

At the head of the room, Powell stood behind the end of a large oval mahogany table upon which several stacks of black folios were placed, the contents of which were being organized and laid out by two industrious secretaries. At his right were two other chaps who Lane vaguely recognized—one a besuited man in an odd bow tie, and another in dress blues. But at Powell’s left—my god.

One look at the Red Viper told him precisely how she’d come by her alias. Her elegantly curled hair was so bright it was like the flame of a roman candle – paired with pale, flawless skin, dark red lips, and – most surprising – bright blue eyes that seemed to track his every movement. Even in standard-issue uniform, which covered her from neck to knees, she was stunning.

He thought perhaps he was staring at the woman, and stammered to say something more interesting than _hello_.

“Pardon me, I didn’t—catch your name.”

She arched a perfectly plucked brow, but did not smile, and her voice was like ice. “It’s classified.”

Good lord, and she was American, as well.

One of the other men was smirking, but Lane soldiered on, determined not to make himself a total fool. “Sorry—of course. I only wondered, are we to address you as, erm, Agent, or perhaps your formal rank—or—”

“Agent is fine,” she interrupted. As she studied him, her red mouth pursed into an expression he did not know how to parse.

He tried to make light of his faux pas. “Well. Good. I—am sure you should not want to be called—Miss Viper, or something equally—ridiculous.”

Oh, god, how could he be so completely and utterly _stupid?_

“Pryce,” Powell moved to sit, indicating Lane was to take his own seat at the other end of the table. “No time for trivialities. We’ll begin.”

The back of Lane’s neck burned hot with embarassment at the reprimand, but he pretended to be at ease, giving the woman a brief nod as he stepped back, and attempting to conduct himself with more care.

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

During the briefing, he spoke only when called upon, apart from presenting his team’s report on the status of the Russian front, but he was compelled to look across the table at Agent Viper several times. He felt as if the woman were still evaluating him, finding him wanting, although every time he glanced up to see if this was so, she was always busy, studying maps or listening to the speaker.

 _Concentrate_ , he told himself sternly, letting out a small breath, and determining never to let his mind stray down that path again.

_That woman’s life—the life of your country—is in your hands._

**

After the first few months, even if the meetings with Viper had not been scheduled two days in advance, Lane always had a sense for when she’d finally arrived at headquarters. In the mornings, the w.c. was crowded with far too many chaps, clustered in front of the single mirror like groups of girls, splashing water on their faces and combing their hair, probably thinking about how charming they were, and how _she_ was sure to find them irresistible.

She never looked twice at any of them, of course, but Lane hated it all the same: the bawdy talk, the noise—the constant irritations. The youngest lads going over their lunch breaks, or making excuses to walk past the War Room, hoping for a single sighting.

In those few days before her arrival, Lane began to arrive at work very early in the mornings in order to peruse his team’s reports—breaking curfew, if he were being honest—but neither his landlord nor the night shift employees had given him away, and so he reviewed documents at his leisure in the War Room, and appreciated the blissful solitude.

On one of these nights – around two o’clock in the morning – he went off to make himself a cup of tea and returned to find Viper herself standing over the table, hair upswept and wearing a dark blue dress that was fitted from shoulders to waist, with white piping at the sleeves and collar and a small bow at the back. Without her uniform, she looked like any other woman, although she was currently leafing through his personal case notes on the old Czech political parties.

“Hello,” she said before he could speak, not even turning around. Lane wondered if she had heard his footsteps echoing down the corridor, and winced at the thought.

“Evening.” He cleared his throat. “Or—morning. I did not know you, erm, needed the dossier so soon.”

He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The formal meeting was not for another day, and although everything was technically prepared to parameters, the document was not quite up to his personal standard. He had hoped for some time to review the thing before she examined it.

“Sorry. It’s not quite finished.”

“Not finished.” Viper turned to glance at him. At first, he was afraid she was angry, but the way one corner of her mouth twitched up slightly after she said this made him realise—she was joking.

He felt relief wash over him in a rush, and let out a breath. “Well, the papers have been completed, obviously, but I only wanted to—it could be better, you see. There’s always more to be added, any detail which might…help your mission.”

“My mother always said the devil was in the details,” she replies, her mouth twitching up again. “These are very thorough.”

From her, it was high praise, but Lane could not help shaking his head.

“To be honest, I’ve had a, erm, strange feeling every time I look over the photographs. That’s—another reason why I wanted to review them.”

He expected her to make some arch remark about how it must be jitters, or related to inexperience, or about another covert skill he presently lacked.

“What feeling?” she asked instead.

Lane sighed again. “It’s difficult to describe. I don’t know.” He hesitated to use the following word, as it sounded silly, but one could only beat about the bush for so long. “Call it a hunch. Something’s…not quite right.”

For a moment he thought he could see doubt cloud over her usual confident expression. “I know what you mean. I’ve felt it, too.”

“Oh.” The last thing in the world he expected an agent to do was agree with him. “Well.” He set his untouched tea at her left hand, deciding she ought to have claim to the first cup. “You’re—welcome to stay and review them, also. If you like.”

In a flash, the quizzical look in her eye had vanished. She picked up the next file on her right, still open from his earlier analysis.

“I can make time.”

Two hours later they were spinning their wheels again. Lane scrubbed two hands over his eyes briefly, then got up, and began to walk around, pacing one side of the room. For some reason, he felt as if he could think better while on his feet.

“From the beginning: Helmut Ziegler, Nazi bureaucrat, former weapons specialist, and personal friend of Wilhelm Frick. Born 1895, married once in 1923, wife died, no children. In the last six months, has been spotted in Berlin, Paris, Rome, Prague, Krakow—”

“Florence,” interrupted Viper.

“Blast it. That’s always the one I forget,” Lane sat down again. “No military station.”

“I know. Maybe that was a fluke.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers, as if she had a headache. “Okay. Former _Reichsstatthalter_ _,_ promoted to the Ministry of the Interior in ’41. By all accounts: restless with the war effort, unimpressed by Hitler, possibly ambitious.”

“Photogenic,” Lane said slyly, holding up the formal officers’ portrait in front of him, turned out as if for her inspection. The gentleman in question faced the camera unsmiling: party uniform pressed, dark hair parted very severely to one side, and wore a scowl on his face that reminded Lane of old fairy stories used to scare children into eating their vegetables. The man’s eyes were colder still, and they bored into the camera in an eerie way, all-seeing. All-knowing.

He was surprised again when Viper smiled at this weak attempt at humor.

“Well, the candids aren’t much better.”

All snapped very recently, years after the posed photo. There were four shots, captured by various SOE operatives: one of Ziegler walking out of an Italian hotel and toward a chauffered town car, accompanied by a well-dressed woman whose face they could not see, one of him at dinner with an old Prussian aristocrat—apparently there was another mission on the docket to start tailing _that_ chap—and two pictures of Ziegler taken from the street, in two different cities.

Lane turns the formal photo over in his hands again. Even for a Nazi, he looks miserable. “Maybe he went to Florence for a bit of cheering up.”

“Maybe he just likes Michelangelo.”

This startled a genuine laugh out of Lane. He did not expect an agent to be knowledgeable about art history. “Perhaps so, although look at this picture, here. No—affected emotion at all.”

“I hate it more every time I look at it,” she replied flatly, but Lane thought he knew the agent well enough now to understand that he was allowed to continue talking in this vein—to be a little ridiculous.

“Well, the Germans have no artistic spirit anymore. Least, that’s what my brother always says.”

Viper raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry.” He felt self-conscious. They’d never spoken about personal matters before. “I’m sure you’ve much more interesting topics to discuss than…my stupid brother’s opinions on photography.”

“Is he older or younger?” she asks, after a small pause.

“Oh—well, I’ve—both, actually, but the one I mean is the eldest. Four years over me. Very, erm, colorful personality. Lot of odd jobs.”

“How long did he take pictures?”

Her fingers toyed with the edge of a typed memorandum, now, but her eyes were focused intently on his face, and this cheered him, for some reason. She wanted to hear this story; she wasn’t feigning interest or going all glazed.

“Oh—several years—and he, erm, actually went to—to Germany. Between the stock crash and the Reichstag fire. Some notion about finding real drama there, or the truth of the human condition—“ Lane made an aggrieved noise. “Well. He’s one of _those_.”

She looked thoughtful. “Did he show you any of his photos?”

“Not as far as I’m aware.” Lane glances back at the portrait photo again. “Although he did do a bit of work for some—regional governmental body in the Weimar, no one important now. Said their formal portraits were very precise: measured almost to the centimeter. Camera set back from the figure by exactly one meter. Head tilted two degrees—you know what I mean—”

“Puffed peacocks,” Viper looked amused.

Lane couldn’t help smiling, but as he stared at the picture again, into the icy gaze of their present target, he felt something lock into place.

“Pupillary distance.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

He grabbed for the nearest pencil and scrap piece of paper, turning it over to sketch out a quick reference chart.

“Measurement taken between the centers of the pupils in each eye—for eyeglass prescriptions. And if we know the distance between our subject and the camera” — on his scrap paper, he drew a vertical line from a box labeled camera to the oval labeled subject, writing in the appropriate figure in centimeters, then millimeters, as was normal for pupillary distance — “as well as the relative measurements of his facial features, we can extrapolate that data and put it to scale like a map—do you see?”

“Why extrapolate?” asked Viper. She seemed to be coming up with ideas of her own, now—he recognized the fiendish gleam in her eye from their usual conference room meetings, when she got excited about a new bit of knowledge, and began to put pieces of a mission together in her mind. “I assume you can’t fake pupillary distance with lenses. Why wouldn’t we just collect it for his files?”

He was impressed she’d figured this out so quickly. “You said it yourself—why would a middle manager of the interior need to fly all over the world, appearing in nearly every city with an Axis stronghold?”

“Likes the attention.” She rose from her chair, mouth pursing as she continued to think out loud. “He’s obsessed with image—the women and the clothes. Very body-conscious, very vain, almost like an—”

Viper stopped talking, her eyes widening a little.

“Like an actor.” She scoffed out a breath. “He’s a decoy.”

“Well,” Lane quickly demurred, feeling alarmed because he had not confirmed this fact using hard evidence before sharing his private theories with her. “I—we can’t know for sure. He’s got to be facing the camera directly for the pupillary measurement to be accurate, although we could go from medial to lateral canthus as they do with children—but these pictures aren’t exactly—”

She plucked the official photo from his hands, pulled another from the file, and set them side-by-side, pointing toward the second, the one with the car.

“Look at the back of his neck. What did I tell you?”

Lane did so. There was a small pale squiggle between the man’s stiff collar and his hairline—a mark he’d previously written off as a photographic error, or an odd trick of the light. But Viper had noticed it early on; she’d kept trying to figure out fighting scenarios gone wrong, and had come up with nothing definitive.

“Plastic surgeons cut behind the ears and above the hairline,” she told him, gesturing toward the man’s dark slicked-back hair. “Strengthens the resemblance.”

“That’s—brilliant,” Lane murmured. God, the man really could have a decoy, but what on earth would the genuine article be doing if his double were roaming around all of Axis-occupied Europe?

“Do you think the real Ziegler’s injured, dead, or just planning a coup?” she asked after a moment, matter-of-fact.

When Lane looked up, he saw she was grinning at him.

He felt pride surge through his chest as he observed how pleased she was. They’d solved it. They’d actually solved it.

**

_Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

_Click._

Chamber was empty. Lane sighed, relaxed his stance, and placed the black service revolver back down onto the high wooden counter. He took off the awkward safety goggles and rubber earmuffs, and glanced over the grouping on the paper target from a distance, then pushed a small button on the right hand side of the wall in order to have the paper pulled forward to him.

The verdict: horrible.

One shot – the first one – went nicely through the stomach, but the others were all over the place. One bullet had even ricocheted off the back of the range wall. Pedestrian, he grumbled to himself, poking a finger around the mark nearest the paper’s edge, and thinking of all the failures one wrong shot could have caused. Injured civilian. Dead agent. Assassinated potentate.

He heard a faint rustling coming from the corner by the door, and whirled to see who was there, but when he glimpsed the familiar flash of red hair, he relaxed again.

“Don’t—poke fun at it,” was all he said to Viper as she walked into the room, trying to quiet the urge to hide the paper from her view. “I’m out of practice.”

They hadn’t seen much of each other in the past few weeks, not since the disastrous Ziegler meeting. Powell hadn’t reacted kindly to the idea that his prized, very expensive mission would need to be postponed due to bad intelligence, nor had he appreciated being – as he put it – blindsided by one of his analyst teams.

Lane had walked into the room on the morning of the meeting to find Viper and Powell in the middle of a very heated fracas, with Cooper watching from his usual seat at the other end of the table, his coffee and pastry forgotten on the table.

_She’d thrown her file onto the table with a scoff; papers scattered onto the carpet. “I’d rather you got me the correct information on my fucking target, so that when this task force meets again, it’s not to discuss my funeral plans!”_

_“For god’s sake, H—” he’d glimpsed Lane, then, and stopped mid-sentence, lowering his voice— “Agent. Don’t presume I’m unaware how you got your hands on that bloody report a full two days in advance—”_

_The sneer on Powell’s face as he spoke made Lane’s blood boil, as did the base accusation at the heart of his comment. He wasn’t stupid enough to hand confidential files to any beautiful woman that happened to turn her head, for god’s sake! And she wasn’t stupid enough to try to seduce him for it!_

_“She did not ask for that file, sir. I gave it to her freely.”_

_Surprise colored Viper’s pale features before she turned her face away from Lane, back toward Powell. Lane still took care not to look at her as he spoke._

_“My duty to this taskforce is to notify the agent of all changes to my report, no matter how inconsequential. Those were your words. And our overall mission in the region would have been severely compromised if she had gone after the wrong man—”_

_Powell turned an ugly shade of red, smashing one open palm down onto the table. “By god, Pryce, can you really be so incompetent? You are supposed to notify_ me first! _”_

_Lane clenched one hand in a fist to keep from looking away._

_“I left a message with your wife. Sir.”_

_Which was the truth, if a very small technicality. After Viper had left, around four or five o’clock in the morning, Lane had phoned the Director at home personally, not trusting the secretaries to place a call of such import. He’d used the telephone bank, given a false name—said the proper code phrase and everything, but the woman must have misheard him, or had not known it, or had not wanted Powell to come to the phone. She took down the message in an exhausted manner and said that he was already a newspaper subscriber—meaning he’d return Lane’s call as soon as possible._

_Powell’s mouth hung open for a moment, but he’d closed it, set his jaw, and drawn himself up, studying Lane with a new sort of contempt in his gaze._

_“This meeting is canceled. Get out of my sight.”_

“I—still don’t know why he hasn’t suspended me. Already scheduled for PFT next month, of all things.”

Viper leaned against the side of the cubicle next to him, crossing her arms over her chest. It drew attention to the long gold pen necklace she was wearing over her standard beige blouse and knee-length olive skirt. He’d never seen her wear jewelry before, although the uniform suited her very well, of course.

“He’s having an affair with Carlborough’s daughter.”

Lane fumbled the open box of bullets he was holding. A handful of them fell onto the concrete floor with a tinkling sound that echoed throughout the otherwise empty room, but all he could do was stare at Viper, whose expression was strangely sympathetic. At the start of the war, the Duke had been one of their biggest financiers—to take up with his daughter, who was—god, was she even twenty—?

“That’s madness,” he breathed.

“It’s why Powell hasn’t gone after you. He thinks you know.”

“My god.” Lane felt horrified, and knelt down to pick up the stray shells in order to have something to do with his hands. She remained motionless. “But Mrs. Powell didn’t—you know he never talks to me about anything—anything at all. How the hell would I have found it out?”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “He’s stepped out for a long time. I think she liked being left alone at first, but now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they got divorced. He’s getting careless.”

Lane glanced up from the last of the mess, and got to his feet, casting an uncertain look around the empty range. Eyes and ears were everywhere. How could she speak so freely about this?

Silent, Viper tapped the chain of her necklace once, and then folded her arm across her chest again. Good lord. Must be jamming a signal somehow.

“How long?” he asked.

“Two minutes,” she replied, now pretending to examine one red-lacquered fingernail on the same hand. “I’ll say it malfunctioned, if anyone asks.”

Lane cut to the heart of the matter.

“Should I be worried?”

She picked up the gun from the counter, opening the chamber and loading it with six bullets in an easy, practiced motion.

“I don’t think so. Powell never loved you, but you were still promoted, so his opinion doesn’t hold total sway for this branch. And in the room, you’ve got Ford, and Cooper, should you want backing from the spooks.”

Gun loaded, she spun the chamber before clicking it back into place.

“Really?”

God, his voice sounded so childish. He fiddled with the (now-closed) box of bullets still in his hand, suddenly bashful, and trying to sound nonchalant.

“I—didn’t think Cooper cared one way or the other.”

“He’s an objectivist,” she said with a shrug, now examining Lane’s old paper target with narrowed eyes. Lane tried not to wince, hoping she wouldn’t judge his poor form too harshly. “He cares about facts and results, which you deliver.”

Lane was already pulling a new paper from the box below the counter, clipping it to the line. “And Sterling?”

She grinned, and sent the new target sailing toward the back of the range. “The Admiral thinks Powell’s got a big head—and he likes to be entertained.”

“How on earth did you hear about it?” Lane’s curiosity was now too pressing to ignore. “The affair, I mean.”

Viper set the gun back onto the counter, and took the box of bullets from his hands, placing them at the far right of the cubicle next to his glasses. “I’ve seen them together; he doesn’t know. But Powell is aware that the Admiral’s got a blabbermouth son, who you’ve met, I think.”

Lane didn’t remember that, but still laughed at the image, picturing some idiot on shore leave, getting three sheets to the wind and gossiping to a beautiful woman in a bar about all his father’s very important friends. What a stupid fool.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stand up for you,” she said next, quietly, and it was such a surprising declaration Lane felt goosebumps prickle his skin.

“You—I didn’t expect—anything of the kind,” he stammered, turning to stare at the pristine target in the distance. He could hardly look at her. “He’d have just—shouted at you again.”

“Still.” She picked up the pair of safety goggles, and handed these over. He took them as if in a daze, and put them on. “You’re a good agent. You deserve better.”

Amid the silence, there was a barely-audible beep, meaning the signal jammer must have ceased its work. Even if it had continued working, Lane was sure he would still have been left speechless. He wished he could give her an equal compliment, and have those words kept in the same confidence; have his admiration—professional, of course—shared only between them.

You’re a—lovely person, he would say. Truly. I do hope you know that.

He picked up the gun instead, and shifted his feet, needing something new to focus on. When he glanced to his right, briefly, he noticed Viper was frowning, and observing his shooting stance with one arched eyebrow. She was sporting a pair of standard-issue rubber earmuffs around one forearm.

“Relax your left shoulder when you shoot. You’re too tense.”

Lane tried to comply, but felt the movement awkward, and winced.

“All right.” He tried to shake off his sudden nervousness. “Well, I’m—going for it. Cover your ears.”

She put on her muffs. He looked back to the target, and raised the revolver.

**

The paper target whirred as it returned to them, and when Viper pulled it down, and handed it to him, there was triumph in her eyes.

“Good grouping.”

Four shots to the chest, one to the shoulder, and one clean through the eyes.

Lane was grinning so widely it made his jaw ache. “It’s—all right, I suppose. Not all of us went to Four, you know.”

Viper laughed, and held a hand out for him to give her new bullets, so she could load her own gun. She’d helped him refresh his marksmanship enough to pass his annual, and afterwards, they’d started to come down here once every few weeks, at night, if she was not out on a mission. She knew he had made a habit of staying late two nights before their scheduled debriefings; he knew she loved nothing more than a nip of wine and a bit of target practice. For fun, she said. It cleared her head.

Granted, tonight’s wine was rubbish, and it was in a red thermos he’d nicked from one of the secretaries’ desks, but it was better than nothing. Viper was very generous about this, and proclaimed she’d had much worse.

“Where did you train?” she asked, putting her half-loaded pistol aside, and coming over to lean against the side wall of his cubicle. “If it helps, I was also at the hundred and third.”

Lane tried not to let his embarrassment show. God, she’d done specialty, as well. “Oh, well, after the basic, you know, it was only Five for me. The subterfuge went all right, but the physical, erm—I never quite got the knack for parachuting.”

Or the qualifying time for the pack run. He’d taken the course twice, and couldn’t get those two marks up enough even to scrape through. The failure still stung at him from time to time, and would do a great deal more than that if his farsightedness hadn’t gotten worse every year since. Easier to understand why they wouldn’t want a blind person leading anyone into enemy territory.

Not that he was blind yet. He just had to wear the specs every day now, instead of when he felt he couldn’t get by without them.

“Eyesight gives me a decent excuse,” was all he said. “Or—well, sometimes. Not always.”

Oh, he’d gone a bit maudlin, probably had too much to drink. When he freed himself of all the shooting equipment, and turned around to look at Viper, she was staring at him.

“Sounds like quite a story.”

With anyone else, he wouldn’t dare talk about it, but with her—perhaps it would be all right.

“There was—I was seeing a woman,” he said slowly, and felt pathetic. “Erm, before everything started. We were actually—I had asked for her hand, so we were, er, engaged, but she couldn’t get over the fact that I wasn’t—doing enough. For the war effort, and all that. Erm. Your cover’s probably different than ours, the desk jobs are all just bankers, or clerks, or something equally mind-numbing. Not a lot of questions.”

Viper let out a breath through her nose, and shook her head from side to side like this was the worst kind of insult. And now Lane felt that she really ought to hear the whole truth, so he kept on.

“Anyway, Becca—well, knew I’d gone out for something important, even if I didn’t tell her _what_ , and just kept insisting that it would be the best thing for me, that I could finally make something of myself, do my part, instead of…sitting around, crunching numbers all day.”

Viper’s eyes widened. “Jesus.”

“But then, I didn’t get in,” he said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. “I—couldn’t go out a third time, and that put paid to it, I suppose. She was, er, upset, and—broke it off soon after. Gave me some other reason, of course, but I knew that she felt disappointed. Or whatever—I—suppose I don’t know.”

“You could have told her the truth,” Viper said, clearing her throat, and he lifted startled eyes from the floor to stare at her. They both knew people had been tried for treason for lesser acts. “If you really loved her, I mean.”

Lane nodded, once, to show that the thought wasn’t completely irrational. People had done such things before, after all: told spouses and friends and parents and all sorts. That’s why they were warned against it so many times.

“I—yes, I suppose I—could have.”

Viper’s blue gaze was steady, and her voice as gentle as he’d ever heard it.

“But you didn’t.”

“No,” he finally whispered.

She handed him the red plastic cup without a word, pressing it into his hands before he could say anything else, and when her fingers brushed across his—when her free hand touched the side of his arm before she drew back—he had to stop himself from closing his eyes.

Oh, god. Don’t. He gulped down another drink of wine.

**

When Lane opened the door to the War Room for their next meeting, he heard an exuberant voice booming across the table—this man’s every word was audible before Lane had even stepped through the door.

“So, Red, how’s army life?”

The speaker was American: a vibrant, suntanned man more or less Lane’s age. He wore a blue naval uniform – highly decorated – and had salt and pepper greying hair. Lane’s eyes widened at the sheer cheek of this strange man showing up to their meeting and calling Agent Viper _Red,_ but she just glared at the fellow like he was stupid, and arched an eyebrow.

“I hope you read that report.”

“I did,” the man replied, with a smirk. “Interesting stuff. He the author?”

Viper nodded once, gesturing toward Lane. “Agent Pryce, this is Captain Sterling, the Admiral’s son. His father is indisposed today.”

Lane had to concentrate to keep the smirk off his face, but he extended a hand. This was the so-called blabbermouth? How strange.

“Pleasure.”

“Likewise.” The Captain jerked the thumb of one hand toward Viper. “This one says you’re a real brainiac.”

“Well,” Lane cleared his throat, secretly pleased by the compliment. “She’s an—incredible asset. To—the program.”

The Major snorted out an amused noise. “Sure.”

“Roger,” said Viper. The reprimand in her voice was clear, but the soft tone made Lane look askance at the blabbermouth, as he went to take his usual seat. God, what if the two of them were involved? Or what if she had another boyfriend, some other strapping agent that Lane knew nothing about?

He spent several minutes worrying about this possibility before the blabbermouth put the theory to rest.

“You sailors are all the same.” Viper’s full mouth was twisted into an amused expression as she spoke. They were talking about old times; people Lane had never met, and places he had never been. “I bet Mona loved having you under her feet at home.”

Sterling laughed, and seemed not to care about the dig at his wife—at least, Lane supposed that must be his wife.

“Yeah, about as much as Greg did.”

Viper’s amusement disappeared. Lane was so startled by her visible change in mood that he fumbled his pencil trying to write and eavesdrop at the same time.

“Oops,” the blabbermouth muttered, glancing at Lane, and pulling an apologetic face. “Little pitchers, I guess.”

“No,” Viper said, lifting her chin in defiance, and looking Lane dead in the eye. “You can hear this. I was married – twice – but now I’m not.” She glared at the Captain. “He likes bringing it up, for some reason.”

The blabbermouth raised his eyebrows, but since Ford, Powell, and Cooper had already begun filing into the room, there could be no further discussion on such topics.

Nearly an hour later, they were well into the mission briefing, with Sterling providing color commentary through nearly every point of business until Cooper looked over and told him to stop his infernal yammering.

Powell seemed relieved to get back to routes, and flipped to the next page with a relieved huff. Soon enough, he frowned, peering down at the paper with visible confusion. Lane knew what this was about: the safe cracking. All the usual methods were out, for fear they’d attract too much attention—no drills, no nitroglycerin—no explosions at all.

Viper seemed disappointed but not surprised by this conclusion.

“Well, I’ll need at least five minutes in the room. Maybe ten.”

“Ten?” Powell looked affronted. “Impossible.”

The agent lit a cigarette; Lane knew the gesture was meant to keep her hands busy as she spoke. “If you want me to figure out more than two numbers, you’ll make it possible.”

“There could be millions of combinations,” Ford pointed out. “How could you pare them all down in less than ten minutes?”

“Well,” Lane offered quickly, because she looked mutinous at being accused of such idiocy, “if Viper considers the problem in terms of error ranges, that insight alone lowers the amount of possibilities significantly, to about eight thousand. Considering the imprecise mechanics of the bolt and gears, in many cases she would only need to try one number in every five, at which point—”

Powell turned back to the agent, interrupting Lane. “What if you had radio support?”

Viper closed her brief and leaned forward in her chair, leveling Powell with a glare that meant business. “I can’t spend half my mission waiting on a handshake confirmation. Not if you want me to get to Geizsler within the same time frame.”

The blabbermouth looked skeptical. “Can’t she just have a two-man team?”

“No,” Ford’s tone was final. “We cannot endanger more agents than are absolutely necessary. Not at this stage.”

“Come on. What about Ossining?”

Lane was shocked the other man was so well informed. Viper must have been much less startled, because she only made a skeptical noise.

“He’s good with words, not numbers.”

“Deep cover assignment,” Ford interjected.

“Then how about Brooklyn?”

“Likewise.”

“Okay, fine. Princess has a brother. Anyone think to use him?”

“He’s M.I.A.,” Cooper steepled his hands across his stomach while he spoke. Lane winced automatically at this news, as did the rest of the room. It was never easy to lose a team member, but an agent in particular represented a terrible waste.

“Damn.” The blabbermouth shook his head, solemn only for a second before returning to what Lane assumed was his usual insolence. “Well, Red, guess you’ll have to brush up on your calculus. What’s the square root of six hundred?”

She glared at him. “Go jump off a ship.”

Lane had to duck his head to hide a smile, but after a moment, he began calculating the answer in his head, just for fun. Papers shuffled around him. Ford and Powell were debating entrance points again. Viper was sketching out what looked like a map. Cooper was taking another drink of coffee.

Twenty four point four nine eight nine seven…something. Hm. He’d set it to paper in a bit, see what the next couple of numbers were.

“Wait—is that right? Did anybody else hear him?”

Lane glanced up from his papers, confused.

Across the table, Sterling was staring at him.

“Hey, St. John. Why can’t this guy do it?”

“I beg your pardon?” Powell’s eyes had narrowed.

“You wanted to tighten the window with radio support in the field,” the blabbermouth continued with a shrug. He turned back to Lane. “What were you saying earlier—the thing about eight thousand options?”

“Well,” Lane sputtered, “it’s—the most-frequently chosen combinations are often dates, rather than random strings of numbers, a—and if we cut that figure down to only include dates after nineteen hundred, based on the age of the safe’s owner and the possible ages of his living family members—”

“People are predictable,” Viper interrupted, nodding her head in a way that meant she understood. “It would help.”

“At that point,” Lane continued, “only a hundred and sixty two of those combinations would work as dates. Approximately.”

Sterling gestured in Viper’s direction with a flat-palmed hand. “Come on, Powell. Am I crazy? She needs backup who thinks like him—like a civilian.”

The man himself was unmoved. “He is _not_ field trained.”

“He was at Five, and passed everything but the parachuting.” Viper waited a beat before speaking again. “I saw the scores in his file. They’re excellent.”

Oh, my lord.

Lane didn’t dare open his mouth to contradict her, although his mind was now spinning with additional questions. Had she honestly gotten hold of his personnel file? Why had she wanted to look? What was she searching for? Did she really hold his scores in such high esteem?

 _She saw his first name._ This thought struck him in a rush.

“Agent Pryce,” Cooper’s eyes narrowed as he turned to stare at Lane. “Are you capable of performing such a task in the field, under the watchful supervision of E branch?”

“I—” Lane straightened in his chair, determined not to stutter this time. “Yes, sir. I believe I could do.”

“He’d just be technical support,” Sterling flipped through a few more pages of the file before turning back to Powell, whose jaw was clenched so tightly it was as if he wanted to murder everyone in the bloody room. “Not like he’d be running the op. Or carrying a gun.”

“I believe,” Ford began carefully, capping his fountain pen—and that was when Lane knew the idea had gained significant traction. The man only put away his writing instrument once a final decision had been made— “this may warrant further discussion at a later time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heh, this was getting too long to be a single-chapter story, so it's now broken into two giant pieces. I've always been a sucker for WWII-era spy games, intelligence agencies, and the strong women who led some of their operations. Joan's backstory is based heavily on several real agents of that era including [Nancy Wake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Wake), [Pearl Witherington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Witherington), [Odette Hallowes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odette_Hallowes). Lane's analyst job is mostly pulled from thin air, but the mathematics associated with safe-cracking comes from an [excerpt from a book on Richard Feynman](http://www.mikepope.com/blog/AddComment.aspx?blogid=2291), the mathematician.
> 
> And yes, I know that Red Viper is also Oberyn Martell's nickname in GoT, but I'm not writing fanfic about Westeros here, so IDGAF. XP


	2. Chapter 2

After Lane had parked the hired car in the specified lot and walked half a mile to their meeting point—a corner of Holborn near Great Russell Street—Viper appeared at his side on the pavement with no preamble at all, shortening her strides to match his, although the pace was still quick. She was wearing a dark coat over a hunter-green dress, a brunette wig, horn-rimmed glasses and a small black hat—and when she spoke, it was in French. Thank God his fluency wasn’t the subject in question.

 _“I’ve always loved poppies in springtime._ ”

This one was easy to remember. _“My mother always favored carnations.”_

She said nothing, but Lane knew he’d given the correct phrase, because if he hadn’t, she would have disappeared again, and he’d have found a piece of scrap paper in his coat pocket with the coordinates of the next destination written on it.

“ _The group on the corner of Regent and Maddox Street. Tell me about them._ ”

“ _Five men at the top of the crosswalk_ ,” Lane said, putting his hands in his coat pockets as they walked. He’d had to stop there for the traffic signal fifteen minutes before—that’s why she was asking. “ _All in coats, but only two with umbrellas—one held a newspaper over his head_.”

They crossed to the middle of the intersection ahead of several tourists, and stood alone on the pavement as several cabs rolled past.

“ _The woman behind us in the blue coat_ ,” she said—Lane knew well enough not to turn around. “ _What color was her hair?_ ”

He’d barely glanced twice at that person as they’d made their way to the head of the crosswalk. But her bright coat had caught his eye immediately: it was vibrant in a way that made him think it was brand new. “Blond.”

“Blond _foncé_ ,” Viper corrected, which made him smile. Of course she’d noticed something so small. “ _God only knows where she bought the dye_.”

They’d begun doing extra fieldwork after he’d been cleared for duty for the Geiszler operation—now two weeks out. He’d confessed to her, early on in the process, that he would welcome any advice, thinking they’d walk about the SOE at night, or that she’d give him a few notes, much the same way as they’d done to improve his marksmanship.

Instead, she’d written out a list of four dates, times, and locations nearly two months apart, told him to memorize it, and promptly burned this piece of paper with her cigarette lighter ten minutes later. This was the third meeting—on a Sunday afternoon, of all things.

The light changed. They reached the next crosswalk, walked nearly a block in silence among the crowd, and turned left down another street at Viper’s urging. She didn’t speak to direct him, didn’t even gesture, but Lane knew instinctively when she wanted to turn because of the way her face tilted in that specific direction. He was making something of a habit of understanding her body language. It was necessary. It was mortifying. It was thrilling.

“The price of beef in that window,” she said a moment later, in English—they’d passed a little butcher’s shop two storefronts back.

“Erm. Four pounds and a shilling.” Lane wanted to smile, but kept his face impassive. “Can’t believe he had any.”

She huffed out a breath through her nose, but did not laugh in the way he had wanted her to, and it disappointed him.

“You remember how to get to the Odeon,” she said a moment later, after they’d ducked into a larger street. There was some kind of small swap market going on here—temporary stalls with canvas tops and fabric sides were set up all along the street and pavement, with people bustling about carrying tinned goods and books and small pieces of furniture. Perhaps it was something for the Red Cross or the nearest midwives’ home; there were a couple of sisters in white uniforms in the nearest booth, writing names on a list.

Were they done already? Oh. He thought they’d at least do a couple of dead drops, like the last time. Honestly, it was nice to be out with another person in the middle of the day, even if they were working.

“Of course.” They glanced over a few tiny bolts of fabric in the next booth – meant for housewives, not seamstresses, he assumed. He wanted to try and be funny again; he didn’t understand why she was so quiet today. Last time, she’d been professional, but friendly. Today’s long silences were starting to make him anxious. “Next time, let’s practice a bit closer to home, hm?”

He could feel her eyes flick to his face, but she didn’t turn toward him.

“I don’t think so.”

Oh, God, he’d done something wrong—that tone of voice was usually reserved for countering Powell’s stupidest questions. She was so emphatic he didn’t dare contradict her _,_ but before he could ask her what was the matter or why she was suddenly angry with him, she’d disappeared into the crowd. The only glimpse he thought he saw of her was through the billowing sheet of someone’s makeshift tent, toward the end of the street.

All the way back to the Tube—taking the new route she had told him—on the train home, up the stairs to his sixth-floor flat, he turned it over in his mind. What did she think he was saying? Did she think he was—making a play for her?

What had he said? What had upset her?

**

“Holy shit! Hit the deck!”

The moment after Lane stepped through the door of tactical services, a small explosion rang out in the far right corner of the gynmasia-sized room, burning off an entire table’s worth of work in the process and littering the floor with scorched debris. Even from twenty meters away, Lane could still feel intense heat on the side of his face; he could smell the acrid scent of burning metal and plastic in the air.

A skinny, ash-covered boy with wild black hair was now visible from ten or twelve tables down the way, standing up from a crouched position to peer at the chaos.

“Okay. That didn’t work.” It was probably supposed to be a mumble, but Lane heard it anyway, and then the lad raised his voice to a louder pitch.

“It didn’t work! I’m writing it down!”

“What on earth was that?” Lane asked the next-nearest person, a stout chap with short, dark hair and an impressive beard. He was standing over a nearby table of well-organized gear, wearing a green canvas jacket, a plain t-shirt, and some kind of...waist overalls.

Lane’s ears were still ringing from the blast, and he put a hand up to one of them to make sure it hadn’t punctured an eardrum. No blood, at least.

“Sorry about that, Agent. Hey, Ginsberg,” this man grumbled loudly, giving Lane a put-upon look that said all of this was relatively normal, “how about not blowing us all up for a change?”

“Fuck off!” the lad shouted back.

Lane raised an eyebrow at the language.

The jacketed man just laughed. “Still got your back!”

He turned back to Lane, resuming a more normal voice. “I’m Agent Rizzo. I’ll be walking you through technical protocol twice. Once here, with Viper, and again next week, in the final meeting.”

“What—happened to Dr. Miller?” Lane asked, since his earlier question appeared to have gone unheard. Granted, her fixation on the psychological sciences of spy games had always been alarming, but at least she seemed to have her wits about her. These men were absolutely batty.

“She transferred back to S0-3,” said another voice, from behind Rizzo—the speaker was a young woman in elegant street clothes, whose hair was styled into a sleek black bob. “I can’t imagine why.”

“Thanks, Calvet.” Rizzo was grinning.

The woman laughed. “ _Bien sur_.”

“Oh, forgive me, I didn’t realize you were—foreign,” Lane thought he knew the variant of her accent. Québecois? “Your English is very good.”

“I spent ten years in Montréal before my family moved here. But we’re all transplants. Ginsberg and his dad claimed asylum when their American visas bounced.” Suddenly, she brightened considerably, glancing past Lane and towards the front door with a delighted noise.

“Mon ami. Cette robe te va bien.”

“Thank you, Megan.”

Viper’s high heels clicked on the concrete floor as she strolled over; it took all of Lane’s willpower to keep his mouth from falling open as he turned to look at her. She was wearing a blood-red gown that clung to every curve of her voluptuous body, with a long piece of gold jewelry around her neck, and a gauzy beaded veil the same color as her dress draped around her shoulders. Even with the way the beads from her veil caught the light, he could still glimpse how the pendant of her necklace hung just above the hollow of her ample breasts, and he felt a little lightheaded.

Don’t look down. Don’t stare.

“You’re not in costume yet,” she said to Lane, lightly, as if she’d always shown up to work dressed like this, and he’d never bothered to notice.

“Oh, is that—yours?” Lane’s voice cracked over the last word, ruining his attempt at casual conversation. He forced himself to keep his face impassive, although the back of his neck burned hot. “It’s—good.”

“Well, when the Nazis want a party…” One side of Viper’s mouth twitched up as she turned to Miss Calvet. “I have an issue with my flak jacket. May we speak privately?”

“Of course,” Megan gestured toward another doorway on the left side of the room, and the two ladies were soon strolling arm-in-arm toward it. He could hear one of them laughing, and wondered what they were talking about.

Someone was snapping their fingers in front of his face, and as soon as Lane realized what was happening, he batted the arm away with a growl.

“Thank god,” Rizzo huffed, rolling his eyes and jamming the hand that had previously been in front of Lane’s face into the pocket of his canvas jacket. “Look, you’ve got to pay attention, or you’re going to get yourself killed, and her with you.”

A horrible thought that put all notion of Viper’s red dress from his mind. Lane set his jaw, and turned to face the younger man, chastened.

“Sorry. You’re—right.”

An awkward silence lingered, punctuated only by the familiar _click-hiss_ of an acetylene torch being fired up—coming from Mr. Ginsberg’s corner of the room. An eerie blue and white glow flashed over their faces as the young man began his welding work, seemingly oblivious to everything but his surroundings. From where Lane stood, it appeared as if the lad was about to melt the table along with his intended creation.

Agent Rizzo scratched at his beard.

“Okay, well, don’t get out the nine-tails. We’ll wait for Viper before I go over the big stuff, but let me show you a couple of toys first.” Rizzo gestured toward the table a few feet away from them where a man’s black and silver signet ring, a gold lipstick tube, and a few other gadgets were sitting out for display. “Ginsberg made that first one.”

“What is it?” Lane reached for the ring. Rizzo’s hand clamped over his wrist before he could grab it.

“Whoa. Careful.”

**

Cooper steepled his hands across his stomach.

“Very good. And at twenty one hundred hours?”

Viper closed her file. Lane didn’t know why she’d even had it open; she never needed to bother reading it during the final briefings. “Neutralize Geiszler and his guard, and make my way to the extraction point.”

“Mongoose. Twenty one oh five.”

Lane removed his hands from the edge of the table, trying not to fidget under the room’s watchful eyes. “Cease all surveillance and continue to the extraction point within a fifteen minute window.”

“Twenty one twenty.”

He glanced at Viper before speaking.

“Rendezvous with Gertrude for final withdrawal.”

Cooper and the Captain looked pleased.

Powell and Ford exchanged another wordless glance, eyebrows raised—they’d done this throughout the duration of the briefing. Lane pretended not to see the clear hesitance in the director’s face.

“Well, gentlemen,” Powell let out a breath, giving Lane and Viper a smile which did not quite reach his eyes, “madam. Then we are concluded.”

Viper’s smile was perfunctory in return. “Excellent.”

“Ah—and Pryce,” Ford ran a hand over the back of his neck; the gesture was unnerving, and it sent tremors into his stomach. “You’ve—seen Personnel about the appropriate paperwork, haven’t you?”

Lane bit the side of his cheek to keep the nervousness from his voice.

“Oh. Well, yes. Everything’s…in order.”

He’d sat alone in his flat staring at a blank sheet of paper for two hours before writing in his elder brother as the sole proprietary of his estate, save for a small box of items he’d put aside for Viper. Just in case.

Inside the box were books he’d bought especially because she’d praised them in conversation: melancholy poetry, Victorian romances, gothic tales, or suspenseful page-turners. A file full of newspaper clippings and flyers relaying the stupidest events, because she said she wanted nothing more than to read something mundane for a change—someone’s pig winning first place in a small county fair, a picture of so-and-so’s black kitten which got stuck in a tree and had to be rescued by a local bobby. Adverts for new plays opening in the West End.

There were other trinkets inside, as well: a pencil she’d once tossed at him during a review session, a gold seashell earring she’d used as a pretend piece of intelligence during their covert tutorials, and a box of her preferred brand of bullets, which he’d swiped after one of their evenings at the rifle range. The first paper target they’d shot together. The red thermos they shared on those same evenings – he’d eventually bought it from Allison after what seemed like two weeks of negotiations. A red handkerchief with his initials stitched in blue thread.

He’d written her a letter, as well. Or, rather, he’d tried. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough, but it had still gone inside the box with all the rest. Despite his nervousness, Lane rather hoped that she would somehow have to read it—have to understand everything he was thinking without him ever saying the words aloud.

“Well, then.” Ford got to his feet, and buttoned his jacket. “Mongoose, you depart tonight at precisely twenty two hundred hours. Viper—you leave tomorrow; oh one thirty. We shall see you both when you return.”

There were handshakes and the proper words and well-wishes all around, and suddenly he and Viper were alone together for the first time in several days.

“You’re pale.” She was watching him closely from her seat; they were sitting next to each other instead of across the table in the usual way. “Are you okay?”

He clenched his jaw, not knowing how to tell her that he wasn’t, but that she needn’t worry, and he wasn’t about to upset her at this critical juncture, anyway, so she needn’t bother asking.

“Fine,” he said eventually, his voice a monotone. “Just—going to review the papers. You don’t have to stay.”

Her brow furrowed. “Yesterday, you kept telling me about the typos Kurt made in section two.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Lane snapped, before he could stop himself. “I said I shall review them, and so I’m going to. Is that all right?”

“What’s wrong with you?” she snapped back, folding her arms across her chest. “Why are you upset with me?”

Lane made a growling noise. “I am not—why would I be angry with you?”

“Look,” she said, enunciating every word as if he were stupid. “I don’t care if you’re nervous. I know the feeling. Don’t take it out on me.”

“Why should I be nervous?” Lane got up from the table, pushing his chair aside so roughly that it fell against one of the others, now balanced on two legs. “Everyone only thinks I’m going to get us both killed—”

Viper let out a curse. “That’s what this is about? I wouldn’t have asked you to be part of this mission if I thought—”

“Well, you didn’t ask! You just brought it up in front of everyone as if it had already been decided—you looked through my _private_ _file_ —”

“What, so you don’t want to do this?”

He was as hurt as if she had slapped him. “I never said that! You acted as if you had no other choice in the matter—everyone else you wanted was unavailable, so why not bring me along—”

“I know what my options were!” Viper slammed a hand down onto the paper-covered table. He could see fury vibrating in every line of her body as she got to her feet. “For god’s sake, Lane, I’ve been working alone for four _years!_ I got out of occupied France with the clothes on my back and a million-dollar bounty on my head. I’m better at this line of work than any man I’ve ever met. And all the others want to do when they look at me is fuck me or fight me!”

The truth of her words hit him like a gut punch.

She must have seen the horror in his face, because she let out a great whoosh of a sigh and sat down again, pressing the fingertips of one hand to her forehead.

“I didn’t want one of Powell’s cronies or one of the spooks. They’re all working toward their own ends.” She dropped her hand, and met his gaze. Her voice got very quiet. “Just once, just _one time_ , I wanted someone I trusted in the field with me.”

“Oh,” was all he managed to say. His voice was very faint.

She lifted her hands in a shrug, and when she spoke she sounded more exhausted than he’d ever heard. “I need you to tell me you can do this.”

They locked eyes again for a moment. Lane knew that if he had doubts – real doubts as to his field abilities, not just nerves or anxiety, but the sense that he might compromise their mission – he had to speak up.

This was his last chance.

He glanced around the elegant conference room, with its dark wood paneling and handsome furniture, suddenly thinking of the small graduation ceremony they’d had after completing basic training, and the oath they’d recited in order to become official agents. _I pledge to uphold myself to the rigorous standards of the Special Operations Executive Branch—whether in word, deed, or action. During the course of my work…_

He had to clear his throat to speak again, but he met Viper’s gaze, unblinking.

“I shall—conduct myself with honor, perform my duties with courage, and shall never let my fealty waver—not even in death.” His hands, folded in front of him, had begun to shake, but his voice was steady. “My life, and my talents, shall be given over to the service of my country, as hers shall always be given unto me. This is my solemn vow.”

She didn’t speak.

“I swear it to you faithfully,” Lane said in a rasp, leaving out the final part of the oath: _in the name of God and King, and in view of these many witnesses, on this, the eleventh of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-four._

Her mouth was pursed slightly as if she were still upset, and Lane saw her swallow, once. The gesture made him want to kneel at her feet, take her by the hand—anything to show her it was the truth, and that he meant it.

He would always keep her safe, above all else.

“Okay,” she whispered. There was an added sparkle to her eyes that might not be attributed to the way the overhead lights kept catching the planes of her face. She had blinked it away before he could tell if it was real.

“Do you really want to review?”

Lane let out a sigh, knowing this was her way of apologizing.

“Please.”

**

“Mongoose,” a voice said, immediately after they pried the lid off his grain bin, and Lane sucked in a breath of much-needed fresh air. Lane blinked open his eyes to see a dark-skinned girl standing in front of him. The area around him was dark and musty-smelling, like a basement or cellar. “I’m Aurora. Welcome to Morocco.”

During nearly sixteen hours of travel, Lane had been driven from London to an RAF base, had flown from there onto an aircraft carrier docked somewhere in the Mediterranean, and then from this fuel stop to a small airfield a few miles past the coast. He’d been driven into the capital city hidden in this bin, carried by a dilapidated truck, all because he couldn’t bloody well operate a parachute.

Meanwhile, if Viper had made her window for her previous meeting with Geiszler’s informant, she should arrive at the safehouse very soon.

Lane took the large glass of water the young woman was offering him, gulping it down in a rush before wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. Oh, god, had he forgotten to say something to the girl?

“Thank you,” he rasped, and she gave him a smile as he handed her back the empty glass. Her hair was hidden from view by a red scarf that was knotted artfully around her head, with the bow facing out from around her left ear, and the long dress she wore was plain, but clearly influenced by the local culture. It had an open collar, and was paired with what appeared to be a collared shirt or white tunic underneath it. She was wearing several delicate gold bracelets around each wrist, a woven fabric belt tied around her waist, and a long chain with an intricate gold medallion around her neck. The ensemble set off her dark skin very nicely.

“Is there—are we the only ones here?” he asked first, looking around the small flat with some trepidation. “Sorry. Just—”

 _Never done this before,_ he wanted to say, but didn’t.

She raised an eyebrow in amusement. “Gertrude and Viper should be on their way. If they stick to the timeline, we’ll see them in an hour.”

“Oh.”

“You should lay down if you can.” The agent gave him a skeptical once-over. “You’ll need the rest.”

“I don’t—” Lane protested, but suddenly realized that if he went against her recommendation, he’d spend the next hour with his stomach in knots, trying to make small talk with a stranger. “Erm. Well, yes, perhaps I shall.”

He still spent half an hour fidgeting on top of a scratchy blanket on a narrow bunk, and another twenty minutes lying on his left side while staring at the wall, going over the timeline in his head. _Nineteen hundred hours, Viper arrives at infiltration point; nineteen twenty, Viper makes first contact with Geiszler’s bodyguard and gains entrance to the salon._ At one point, he just kept repeating the nightclub protocol over and over to himself, in French, because it seemed more sensible than trying to sleep.

He must have dozed a little, because the next thing he knew, there was a bit of rustling behind him, just across the tiny room, and a familiar voice, quiet.

“Thank you. We should be fine.”

Lane rubbed at his eyes, and began to roll over onto his back.

“Don’t turn around.” Viper let out a small huff of a laugh. There was a rustling noise like clothes being pulled on – or off. Lane quickly tried to push that image from his mind. “How was your trip?”

He studied the wall in front of him very intently. “Long. And—yours?”

“I’m teaching you how to parachute next,” she said. “Three hours alone in a cargo plane with Captain Chaough. I almost killed myself.”

Lane let out a humorless laugh, although he was far too anxious to joke about such a serious topic.

“Also, if you want to eat, keep it light,” she warned. There was a sound like a zipper being pulled up. “You can turn around.”

He rolled over and sat up. She was wearing a loose white tunic pulled over what appeared to be the red gown he’d seen in tactical services.

“I’m not taking this thing off until I absolutely have to,” she said, raising an eyebrow in a way that was almost fiendish. “It’s very chilly.”           

**

“Vipe, we’ve got a problem,” Gertrude announced as she stepped into the room. Lane jerked his head up from fixing a gleaming cufflink and saw the trouser-clad young woman tuck a strand of straight dark hair behind her ear. “Jammers.”

“So handle it,” Viper replied flatly, fussing with a lock of her red-blonde wig.

Lane winced. It wasn’t meant to be encouraging.

“I can break the new codes,” Gertrude said with a shrug, “but it’ll take time.”

“How much time?” Viper asked.

Gertrude’s dark eyes flicked to Lane. The sharp angles of her clean-scrubbed face were unforgiving in the dull light, and the dread in his stomach intensified.

“Not enough,” he concluded.

“Range’ll be tight,” she replied. “Maybe a fifth of a mile, if that. But he won’t be able to work from the secure location.”

Viper pushed her comb onto the shabby dresser with a growl.

Lane, meanwhile, was racking his brain for solutions, although the only one he had in mind was unbelievably risky.

“What if I—went in with you?”

Gertrude raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised.

He turned to Viper, whose expression was inscrutable.

“We already planned for two people, just in case—and you’ve seen me shadow before. I could keep watch, if we’ve got earpieces.”

They’d spent his last covert session maneuvering around several of the most crowded areas of London. They had set a start point at a pre-determined location, denoted a specific number of actions for him to observe (a faux dead drop and couple of hand signals) and had begun at that rendezvous point, without formal acknowledgement. Viper had planned the route; she darted down streets and alleys and made one or two purchases and went into the thickest of the crowds while he followed from a safe distance, trying to note everything she’d done. After each run, she’d quizzed him on the itinerary.

He’d been all right. Not perfect—but it had turned out to be one of their better sessions, and one of the longest.

After a moment, she nodded her head once.

“The protocol we used at the palace.”

He remembered. “No closer than ten meters, keep to the crowd, no distractions.”

 _Try not to stare at me,_ she’d told him on the day, with a little smile. A few strands of blonde hair had escaped from beneath her hat and started dancing next to her ear, gently flying around her face.

Lane shook his head to put that thought out of his mind.

Viper seemed not to notice this. “While I’m radio silent, watch the crowd, and gather as much intel as you can. We’ll pick back up with the timeline once I’m in contact and inside Geiszler’s office.”

Gertrude, meanwhile, looked as if she were trying not to smirk.

“You know Powell’s not gonna like this.”

Lane thought bringing up that name was an unwise choice.

Viper let out a scoff, securing her wig with another hairpin just above one ear. “He can scream at us once we get back. It’s a field decision.”

“Great.” The younger girl put two hands in the air, miming surrender. “I’ll tell Aurora to telegraph it in. We’re live in twenty minutes.”

**

As Lane crossed to the bar among the glittering throng of Vichy officials, assorted bureaucrats, and their wives, he took a moment to admire the palatial hotel. The white stone arches and mosaic floors were a beautiful marriage of French and Arabic architectural styles. He thought Lewis – or at least, the French version of his brother Lane was playacting, for the purposes of this alias – would do something like this. Take a moment to look around, get a drink.

Few native Moroccans were in attendance tonight. Those Lane spotted were members of the ruling class—friends of the sultan, or highly placed within the Vichy regime—and the rest of the guests, mostly Dutch, German, or French, could have been in attendance at any well-to-do garden party in London. They reminded Lane of the cruel, capricious set he had attended school with, once upon a time. _Oh, Dickie, where on earth shall you summer now that India’s full of dirty street rats?_

Lane picked up a glass of champagne from the nearest waiter passing by, and took another moment to observe his surroundings. There was a piano player entertaining at the head of the elegant stage as a full orchestra set up beside him, and a rather large crowd at the bar. One young woman in particular with blonde hair, an impish expression, and a bright silver gown looked practically luminous in this light.

“Mongoose, this is Viper,” came a faint voice in his ear, and Lane had to force himself not to smile. Gertrude must have found the weak point. “I’ve got the first number.” There was a pause. Her tone changed slightly. “Are you enjoying yourself?”

“ _Yes._ ”  He pretended to take a sip of his champagne, to disguise the fact that he was talking. “ _And you?_ ”

“Zero, five, ten. You’ll owe me a shilling.”

He did smile this time. The day before he’d left, they’d done a bit of safecracking with a model tactical services had recently repaired. It took Lane just over seven minutes to open the safe. Viper took eight minutes, three seconds, and had thrown a notepad onto the floor with a disbelieving noise when he’d showed her the stopwatch. Then she’d picked it up again and tossed it in his direction when he couldn’t stop giggling, demanding that he share his tricks of the trade.

Zero, five, ten. Because she could be off by a margin of two in either direction, she only had to try one out of every five numbers, and if there were twenty options to a disc of one hundred, and three discs per combination, depending on the feel of the wheels as each notch lined up with the bolt—

A sudden movement through the middle of the room drew his eye. A tall, craggy older man with silver-blonde hair and a robust build, flanked by a single bodyguard in plainclothes, was making his way through the party as if he suddenly had somewhere to be—not noticeably rushed, taking enough time to put his hands on people’s shoulders and arms, exchanging quick smiles and hellos, but clearly moving toward the nearest route to the grand staircase—

“ _Target’s on the move._ ”

“How long?” she asked.

If the safe was on the third floor in the east wing of the dar-al-Salaam suite—

“ _Six minutes. Maybe seven_.”

This was followed by an audible click, and Lane let out a sigh of relief.

“I’ve got the safe open. Proceeding as scheduled.”

Lane watched as a dark-haired gentleman with a mustache stumbled into Geiszler’s path, accidentally spilled a drink on the man’s shoes, and placed one hand onto the bureaucrat’s arm, sputtering out apologies. Geiszler moved him off with an annoyed expression, his posture tensing. As they passed, the dark-haired man was left behind, and could be seen talking sadly to a sympathetic person in the gathering crowd, as if he couldn’t believe his own foolishness.

No, Lane thought, watching their target move toward the ballroom doors with two bodyguards now in sight. He pretended to need to fix his cufflink again. I’ve got to stall them somehow. I’ve got to do something—

“ _Viper, he’s headed for the staircase.”_

“ _Copy,_ ” she replied, but as she continued speaking, there was a sudden static interference. He could only hear every other word.

“ _I can follow him—_ ” he offered quickly.

“ _Don’t—bar—band will_ — _”_

Oh, hell’s teeth. Gertrude must have lost the signal. Lane understood that Viper wanted him to stay put, but he didn’t know what else she needed him to look for. He’d only spotted one of the other major players so far. Everything was all wrong —according to the timeline, she ought to have had ten minutes in the hotel room before returning downstairs and making contact with Geiszler in the private dining area just off the main ballroom.

What if she couldn’t get the safe open in time?

What if she were caught?

At the other end of the ballroom, the full orchestra suddenly struck up a Glenn Miller tune. Lane recognized it immediately. No sooner had he decided to walk a little closer than someone else looped their arm through his, speaking in rapid French—

“ _May I? I love a good dance_.”

It was the young woman in the silver dress. He’d never met her before in his life, but he couldn’t fuss without creating a scene, so he allowed her to lead him onto the dance floor among all the other couples. Here, they assumed a very informal stance; there were only a few inches of room between them now.

“Who are you?” he hissed in French, keeping his voice low.

“Don’t tug at your shirtsleeve when you talk to her,” she responded pleasantly, leaning toward the ear in which he’d placed his earpiece. She was dancing so close now that she could lean her temple against his cheek, if she wished. “It stands out.”

Cold dread seeped into his stomach.

“Answer my question,” he insisted.

She let out a huff of breath like a laugh, but given their proximity, he could feel that her expression didn’t change; her smile never left her face.

“I’ve always loved poppies in springtime,” she told him.

Lane fought to control his reaction, but missed a step all the same; they swayed awkwardly for a moment before regaining some semblance of grace. His hand skated against the small of her back, across the point where the sequined bodice of her dress met bare skin. He felt terribly uncomfortable.

“My mother always—favored carnations.”

This answered some part of who she was, but he was still suspicious.

“Why are you here?”

Lane wondered if this was Powell’s doing, if he’d had so little faith in his own agents that he’d sent in an additional team to surveill them. He wondered if the dark-haired man from before was here with this woman; he must have been, who would be so clumsy on his feet, so early in the evening?

“Parallel lines.” She let out a content sigh, and looped her arm even further around his right shoulder. Meaning she had a mission of her own, and the two were marginally related, although the details were classified. “Don’t stare at people.”

“I’m—not,” he insisted, although his gaze had been fixed on the wife of a noted official, dancing nearby with her husband. Lane’s hand twitched against the young woman’s waist, but he tried to carry himself in a way that suggested the two of them were familiar and not two complete strangers sharing very intimate space.

“You’re drawing the wrong kind of attention.”

There was static in his earpiece, suddenly, a flash of rapid French—

_—I feel so silly—my shoe—I needed the doorway to—_

And someone else with her, speaking German, perhaps it was Geiszler—

_Liebchen. You must allow me to help._

Then there was nothing. She must have heard it, or Lane must have tensed or sucked in a breath or something, because the young woman was now gripping his hand very tightly as they continued to sway to the slow music. She leaned her head against his cheek, speaking very quietly.

“When this song ends, go to the bar.”

He closed his eyes to keep the anxiety from showing on his face.

“Get a drink, look at the scenery—”

“I am _not_ here to take orders from you,” he told the woman, and felt her eyebrows jump into a surprised expression.

“You’re here to protect her,” she replied. “Do better.”

The music swelled again, signaling the end of the song. She kissed his cheek and stepped backwards from his embrace. Her face remained cheerful enough, but her pale blue eyes were serious.

After a pause, Lane nodded his head once, not trusting himself to speak.

“I’m very thirsty,” she said, pressing a hand to his arm, the motion urging him to go already. Go—and don’t look back. “Will you fetch me something?”

**

Lane ordered a whiskey at the bar and drank it until it turned clear, keeping an eye on all exits and on everyone who crossed his path. After the ice had melted, he ordered another; it essentially looked untouched although he kept bringing the glass to his lips every few minutes. His earpiece had been silent for over half an hour. If Viper did not make it downstairs within the next eight minutes – thus re-establishing their original timeline by a hair – he didn’t know what he was going to do. Should he search for her? Should he alert Gertrude?

He was trying his best not to think of all the things that might have gone wrong, but sometimes his concentration was broken by the worst ideas. Geiszler might have become suspicious. He might have kept Viper upstairs too long. He might be holding her ransom—

There was static in his earpiece, the noise low and buzzing, accompanied by a sound like someone—groaning—oh, good god—

“— _scheisse—_ ”

And suddenly Viper’s laugh was low and clear, as if she were having her own little joke. The back of his neck got very hot. He felt like he was eavesdropping on a private moment, envisioning all sorts of scenarios---but he forced himself to stare into his drink, straight-faced. Don’t move. Don’t react.

“ _We should go down,”_ she was saying in French as the man – Geiszler – gave another low moan. “ _I’m due onstage._ ”

“ _Liebchen_ ,” the man protested—his voice was very loud. Lane imagined this horrible man getting to nuzzle against the silken line of Viper’s jaw, the curve of her neck, and clenched a fist underneath the mahogany bar.

“ _Come, now,_ ” Viper said playfully, as if she had all the time in the world. “ _I’ll sing for you._ ”

“ _You must allow me to buy you a drink,_ ” Geiszler’s voice was quieter, now. “ _I have a private salon, just off the main ballroom. We shall spend time together._ ”

 _“How could I refuse such a generous offer?”_ Viper sounded genuinely surprised. Lane was canny enough to understand she was luring the man downstairs, but he could not help marveling at how easily she was able to do this. She was leading Geiszler to his death with a smile, and the man was too stupid to understand the danger in her invitation. _“It sounds lovely.”_

A few minutes later, as Lane was distracting himself by counting and re-counting the guards stationed at and around the door of the private salon – four, always four – he finally laid eyes on Viper for the first time since exiting the safehouse. Her elaborate red dress and veil were as beautiful as ever, and even on the arm of someone as repugnant as Geiszler, she was stunning. He had to remind himself not to stare as the two of them retired to the private salon, flanked by three bodyguards. He had to remind himself to breathe.

A service revolver was strapped to Lane’s side, chamber loaded, but with the thumb safety still engaged. Viper had asked him to carry it, pressing the gun into his hands just before Aurora had come to collect them.

“You’re sure?” was all he could think to ask her, unable to voice his greatest fear. _What if it doesn’t work? What if I miss?_

“My partners always carry them,” she answered, and that had been it.

The sound from his earpiece was being transmitted clearly now; Lane could hear everything from the terrible jokes Geiszler kept making to the little huffs of breath Viper gave through her nose as she pretended to laugh.

He was listening so intently that he knew the second when she had revealed herself. The crowd was almost raucous by now, and the full band was well into an upbeat swing number full of trumpeting horns and woodwinds – but this did not quite camoflage Geiszler’s sudden cry of pain, hoarse in Lane’s ear, or the other noise that sounded like a blade slicing through flesh and bone.

Lane felt adrenaline course through his body and he sat up slowly in his chair, careful not to draw attention.

“Drop the gun!” Viper’s voice was commanding. There must still be three bodyguards in the room with her.

“Do it!” Geiszler choked out.

Lane eased himself to his feet, placing his napkin into his chair. Viper and Geiszler were speaking German now.

“— _information for Herr Himmler._ _Where is it?_ ”

“ _I—I—don’t have it anymore._ ”

_“Where is it?”_

The fourth guard, walking in the opposite direction away from the door of the salon, seemed not to have noticed the ruckus.

_“I—gave it to—to—”_

_“To who?”_

_“To—to—Gregson.”_

A bloody gurgle split the air—he realized with a sick feeling that she’d split the fellow’s throat—followed by the flour-sack sound of a dead weight dropping to the floor, and then another, and then another—

 _Only two guards. Perhaps three._ Lane reached into his jacket for his gun, and began to walk calmly in the direction opposite the private salon, remembering the instructions he’d been given regarding their extraction. _Once Geiszler has been neutralized, you and Viper will retreat, heading north toward the kitchens._

In his earpiece, there was silence, broken only by Viper’s rapid breathing and what sounded like the sharp click of high heels against marble; he hated this quiet, it was making him terribly nervous. He disengaged the safety of his gun.

A sudden feeling caused a chill to run down his spine.

_Turn around._

Everything happened at once. He moved to stand next to the right-hand wall, as laughing partygoers swarmed around him, walking toward the very busy bar. At the other end of the wide corridor, Viper emerged from the private salon, walking quickly but purposefully toward him, although she would eventually take another route to their extraction point.

She was ten yards in front of him when the fourth guard burst into the hall behind her, his pistol pointed at her back.

On instinct, Lane brought his gun up and fired twice, hitting the guard straight in the chest both times. The strange man fell backwards without even a twitch, his weapon falling out of his hands, and he did not get up. Blood was already oozing out onto his uniform.

Lane quickly lowered his gun. Around them, people had already begun screaming and running for cover.

Viper had whirled around to see the dead man with her own eyes, but suddenly turned to look at Lane. They locked gazes for the briefest of seconds – and it was only his being jostled by a stranger running past that moved him to action.

 _They’ll be after you._ _Go!_

She had not stopped; she was already moving for her exit. Lane turned left toward the kitchens and moved down the long corridor as fast as he could go, breaking into a jog.

Minutes later, he was out of the hotel and past the dark grounds, running at full tilt and moving east toward the center of the city, toward the busy street corner where they were soon to be picked up. He ran past stray animals and sleeping children and men and women of all sorts.

As he crossed the next street—only two more to go—there came the sound of heeled shoes striking pavement, and when he looked over at the other crosswalk, there was Viper, wearing a sort of thin brown cape over her gown, along with a plain headscarf thrown over her shoulders, neck and head. She was breathing hard, flushed from exertion, but she looked unharmed otherwise, and in her hand she clutched a two-inch beige parcel.

“Oh, thank God,” he breathed, running to join her. Relief overtook him so sharply he felt dizzy. _You’re here. You made it._

“Come on,” she urged, taking his hand briefly before they sped up the pace.

From the nearest right-hand alley, there was a flash of movement, and two figures. Lane felt someone’s weight slam into his side, and he tussled on the ground with his opponent for at least a minute before he was able to overpower him by smashing a well-timed fist into his nose.

Meanwhile, Viper stood victorious over the second, who was lying in the dirt unconscious with his neck at a rather uncomfortable angle.

“Out like a light,” Lane said without thinking.

Viper looked at him, askance. Realization followed in a rush.

“Christ,” he whispered. Was the man dead?

They ran the rest of the way to their appointed corner – Lane with his gun ready at his side and Viper checking every cross street for hostiles – and they spent a tense few seconds exposed in the open, glancing around for cover, until Gertrude pulled up to the curb in a small car painted to look like an ambulance, her gun cocked in their direction. She was still wearing her drivers’ uniform, and easily passed for a young boy.

“Let’s fucking go already!”

He and Viper piled into the back of the white vehicle, and drove up the nearest street, weaving through alleys and side roads in order to avoid the usual patrols. Gertrude guided the car through the city with practiced ease.

Viper was saying something to him that he couldn’t hear. Lane was too distracted by the fact that his stomach kept lurching unpleasantly.

_That other agent had found him out within less than ten minutes, and the soldiers followed them almost all the way to the extraction point. He must have given them away. He’d exposed Viper. He’d put them in danger._

_He’d killed someone._

Bile began to drip down the back of his throat, and he covered his mouth.

Viper pushed an open paper bag into his hands just before the nauseous feeling overcame him, and he spent the next few minutes sicking up whiskey and the water he’d had after arriving in country as their vehicle sped toward the desert.

He’d failed. He couldn’t be a proper agent, even for her.

**

The C-47 raced through the sky at a fast clip. From his place at the end of the row of makeshift cargo net seats and in the near-darkness of the bay, Lane could see nothing of the sky outside, even if he’d wanted to look. Opposite him, Gertrude seemed to be asleep with her back turned to the rest of the storage hold, stretched out across several seats as if they were a type of hammock.

A hand brushed against his shoulder, and Lane turned to see Viper standing next to him wearing loose fatigues, her hair piled up on top of her head and her eyebrows knitted in concern.

“Are you all right?” she mouthed.

He gave a shrug. She sat down next to him.

God, he felt completely humiliated.

“I’m sorry I—can’t—be what you wanted.”

The roar of the plane drowned out the catch in his throat—perhaps the entirety of what he’d said—but he still glanced down at his leg for a moment, too ashamed to look at her any more.

Viper’s palms, soft and slightly callused, slid across the sides of his face, making him look up in stunned surprise. As she stared back at him, her fingers wound into his hair. He shivered at the touch.

She was shaking her head _no,_ eyes wide and imploring, and when she leaned forward to murmur in his ear, he felt the hair at the back of his neck stand on end. Before he could say a word, she had pressed her lips to his cheek, so briefly it was as if she hadn’t even touched him.

“You saved my life.”

Her hands were still cupped over his jaw and ears. After a moment, he pressed his palms into the middle of her back, gripping her to him like a lifeline. Lane didn’t know what to say next, or what to do. He could still see the guard in the hotel falling backwards to his death with a look of shock on his face. He felt like he might get choked up if he pulled away or looked Viper in the eyes.

“Is it always like this?” he whispered, not sure if she could even hear him. _When you kill someone?_

He thought he heard her speak. _I’m sorry._ Maybe he was hearing things.

One of her hands stroked over the back of his neck. He closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. This is going to have _three_ chapters, mainly because none of these fools can keep quiet in my head in the middle of the night. :)
> 
> A few notes. The covert operation takes place in the capital of Morocco (Rabat) and is loosely based on the Nazi-loyalist Vichy regime which was running that country's government during the war. Dawn's outfit is based on [ one seen in this vintage photograph](http://teenagefilm.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/e893771e42e3652c904ba64f3055586c.jpg), among pictures of others that detailed 1940s Moroccan dress. Although I imagined an Aryan gala party - even a wartime one - would strongly resemble the ones found in Western Europe, with a few modifications for setting and staff.
> 
> Next chapter should be up in the next few days (I hope.)


	3. Chapter 3

“Berlin,” Lane said flatly, his mouth hanging open in shock.

He and Viper were alone in the range for now, although they hadn’t shot a single bullet tonight. She didn’t have her gun. The initial briefing for her next mission hadn’t even been announced, but she had left a notice in the dead drop location near the British Museum, telling him to meet her here. He’d begun to check it every Monday, out of habit more than anything, and when he’d found the message, he’d practically run back to headquarters to find her. “But why—why should you be needed there?”

“I didn’t ask,” she replied with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. Her mouth was set into a thin line. “I do as I’m told.”

“But it’s madness. The nearest Allied unit is probably fifty miles outside the city by now—you’d be—”

“I updated my will,” Viper interrupted, her voice very calm. “Just in case.”

Oh, good god. She wouldn’t have done that unless she was sure things would turn out badly. Lane felt his chest constrict in an alarming way.

“You told them you’d go.”

Her reply was succinct. “We don’t get to pick and choose the ops.”

“Well, you should do!” Lane was unable to keep his frustration pent up, and began to pace as he spoke, turning away from her for a moment. “Tell Powell he’s out of his bloody mind, because you’re not going!”

“Excuse me?” she hissed.

Five minutes later they were in the thick of a nasty fight.

“How can you just stand there and act like it doesn’t matter—?”

“You really think I’m that stupid—that I honestly don’t understand the scope of this mission? I told you as a _courtesy_ —”

“If you get caught, they’ll kill you!” Lane shouted.

A long silence hung over the room, broken only by the words that echoed around and around off the concrete walls— _kill you, kill you, kill you._

Viper’s eyes glittered with anger as she jabbed a finger toward his chest, her voice quiet, but fierce.

“Then I die fighting. I knew the risks when I joined.”

The mere thought of her lying lifeless in some cobblestone street sent a cold rush of fear into his stomach.

Her heels clicked against the concrete—she was going to leave—

“No, please.” Lane reached out with both hands to grab her extended arm. He had to stop her. “Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

She yanked it backwards before he could touch her wrist. “Don’t!”

“They ask too much of you,” he said quickly, so fast he nearly tripped up the words. “You said it yourself. They take and take until you’ve nothing left to give back to them—you’ve had so many aliases you say you don’t know who you are anymore—and now they’re sending you to the very worst place—”

At least she was looking at him now, even if she was furious; her blue eyes were wide with anger, and two spots of pink had appeared high in her cheeks.

“I don’t need you to explain my feelings to me,” she growled.

Lane couldn’t stop talking, holding his hands up in surrender. “But if something happens—” the image hit him again like a knife sliding between his ribs: her red hair tangled and matted against damp stones, her blouse and skirt flecked with dirt and blood, and her blue eyes unseeing as some lecherous German soldier squatted next to her body, rifling through her field pack— _looking_ at her, touching her with all the reverence of a bored child discarding a broken toy. He felt a hard lump form in his throat. “It’s too much. I could never—”

 _Forgive myself,_ he tried to say, but couldn’t.

Something had shifted in her expression; she was no longer glaring at him, but watching his face very closely.

“Lane,” she said first, expelling a deep breath. Hearing his first name fall from her lips was so surprising he stood frozen in place, with the heels of his hands still pressed into his forehead. “I gave them my word. It’s done.”

“Viper, please.” He wished he could use her given name, too. Her alias felt so heavy in his mouth, and so terribly insufficient. He lowered his hands and reached out for her again, needing to feel that she was here with him; that this entire conversation wasn’t some kind of horrible nightmare. “There’s still time to—”

“Why are you making this harder?” Her voice cracked over the last word in a way that shook him to his core—so quiet he couldn’t even hear the echo.

His hands were on her forearms, now, balanced under them, gripping her wrists as if he was trying to brace the weight of them with his palms. The thumb of her left hand stroked across the inside of his right arm in a way that drove him mad, kept him fixated on the tingling sensation she was stirring there.

“I—” Lane stammered. His heartbeat pulsed frantically in his throat. “You must know.”

“Tell me,” she whispered, and the way she looked at him made him ache.

He couldn’t get the words out. Instead, he pulled her into a passionate kiss. She made a surprised noise against his mouth, but after a moment, tilted her head to deepen it—her hands still gripped his arms, palms skimming up past his shoulders to—

A bang like a door being kicked open somewhere down the long corridor made them both startle, and she leapt backwards away from him, one hand still resting on the top of his arm, and the other wiping stray lipstick from her mouth with her finger and thumb. She looked as uncertain as he’d ever seen her, and met his searching gaze for another moment, but did not hold it for very long.

The voices were getting closer, now, and were accompanied by footsteps. Who the hell would be down here at this hour?

Viper pulled her hand away from her lips and released her grip on his arm; the corners of her mouth were still smudged with lipstick.

“I have to go.”

“Wh—” he was still reeling, reaching for her. “No, please—”

She’d got halfway through the door before he could finish the sentence. Before it could close all the way behind her, Lane paced toward the nearest shooting stall with an angry huff of breath, kicking at the cardboard box full of target papers with one foot, and becoming angry when this just dented the side of the box, instead of breaking it. Why in god’s name had he done something so stupid? What the hell did he think kissing her would accomplish?

He was a fool. He’d ruined everything.

The door to the range slammed open behind him, and the ruckus was immediately followed by three voices—the tactical services team. The boys were carrying a several-foot long gun case between them, bickering as they walked, while Agent Calvet held the door open.

Lane didn’t greet them or ask what they were doing, just saw a sudden opening as Ginsberg got past the door and bolted without a word. He could hear Agent Rizzo’s voice echo out into the corridor:

“Jeez. Something I said?”

**

He didn’t see Viper for several days after their disastrous encounter. The gloomy weight of her absence nagged at him constantly; in the back of his mind, he quietly suspected she must have been avoiding him. She was likely preparing for Berlin, as well, although there had been no documents issued to his team.

So, on a drizzly day early the following week, when he picked up his message slips from his secretary just after lunch, and ducked into his office for a quick glance over some personal paperwork before his next meeting, he nearly dropped his files all over the floor when he saw Viper sitting behind his desk, waiting for him. Alone.

“Hello,” she said.

She was perched in his desk chair, leaning back in it with her legs crossed, both hands braced against the red leather. This chair had come with the office, from someone much more senior and important, and felt very stuffy at first, but after a year or two of sitting in it, he had grown to like the thing very much—and liked it even more, seeing her there, now.

“You slipped past Scarlett,” he said first, stupidly.

Viper gave him a small smile. “Yes.”

“Erm.” Lane shifted his armful of folders to his other hand, and hoped he was keeping his wits about him. “Sorry, did I—were we supposed to—meet today?”

Viper’s eyebrows rose toward her hairline for a brief second before her expression returned to normal. “No.” She cleared her throat in an almost imperceptible way. “I wanted to apologize.”

Lane did drop one folder, then; it landed on the carpeted floor with a _thwack!_

She sat forward in his chair, placing her hands on top of the paper-covered tabletop for a moment before pulling them back into her lap, and folding one palm over the other, very carefully. “I behaved badly. Given everything that happened.”

“Oh,” Lane knew his face must be very red, and resisted the urge to hide his expression from her with a hand. “Well—no—it was a, erm, trying moment. Or whatever you might call it. You were upset, and I—I suppose it’s only natural that—well, not that I did—or that you—”

Viper held up a hand with a sigh. “You don’t have to explain.”

He released a long breath of relief.

“Thank you,” he said after a small pause.

“Anyway.” She smiled at him, and there was an oddly forced quality to the expression. It seemed as if she were trying to convince herself to be cheerful, although he had no idea why she might do such a thing. Or why she would not be able to hide this reticence from him, if she wished. “We’re officially meeting on Friday. You’ll get a notice tomorrow. Alpha clearance.”

Lane felt his stomach swoop and then sink in one long second.

“Ah.”

She’d only come to tell him about the meeting.

Perhaps she felt pity for him. That must be it.

“Well,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the closed door with his free arm, and depositing thick file folders onto the top of the rest of the mess on his desk. His right hand moved automatically to adjust one side of his glasses. “That’s—fine. You could have let the memo come through. I shall, erm, look at it later.”

He wanted to sink through the middle of the shabby carpet. Viper only came to tell him about the meeting, and his office looked as if it had just got bombed by the bloody Luftwaffe, papers scattered everywhere, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for six bloody days, and _she’d only come to tell him—_

Her hand brushed the side of his arm, briefly—she was standing next to him now—and when he glanced over with startled eyes, he wanted to reach out and hold it in place, to feel the warmth radiating out from her palm. He wanted to brush a thumb against the bow of her perfect lips and kiss her and cup her face in his hands.

“Okay,” she replied, quiet.

Before he could blink, she was practically gone, and a gentle breeze was spilling into the room via the now-open door.

**

His analysis team had been stunned to see _Berlin_ stamped across reams of eyes-only files and folders, but if they felt the same stab of fear for Viper that he did—the constant, bone-chilling worry that she would never be as prepared as she needed in order to walk into the heart of the lion’s den and come home alive—the chaps hid it well, and went about their duties the same way as always.

Lane, on the other hand, worked late into the night for so many consecutive evenings he lost track of all time, poring over the maps of troop movements and command profiles and target information until his eyes throbbed constantly with the strain. He wasn’t able to take these files downstairs, and the only other quiet nook on this wing of their floor was an interrogation room that was so underused it was barely even furnished. A long metal table, a mirror that spanned the length of the far wall, and an uncomfortable-looking chair were dusty from disuse.

As Lane set a single thick folder onto the table, and swiped away some of the dust from the seat of the rickety chair, he heard a sudden quiet tapping from the mirror. It took him a moment to process the sound, but once he caught a familiar pattern— _dash dot dash_ —he realized who was trying to get his attention.

- _e-x-t d-o-o-r-e-l-e-c-t-r-_

Beside the interrogation room, to the right, was another door labeled with two signs: _Caution: High Voltage. Unauthorised personnel not allowed._ Lane reached out and tried the handle, and his eyebrows lifted in surprise when the door turned out to be unlatched. Inside, he saw Viper sitting in another of the metal folding chairs, leaning against the treated glass of a long window that clearly looked out onto the interrogation room. She had her feet propped up on a second chair that faced her, with a shapeless dark blanket thrown over her legs and torso.

 _That bloody mirror._ He felt very stupid for not figuring this out, although the sight of Viper sitting in here so quietly, leaning against the window and looking very much as if as if she were at home, watching the street on a cold winter morning, made him smile.

“You’re very comfortable,” he told her.

She seemed pleased to hear him say that, her mouth curving up at the corners. “I come here when I don’t want anyone to find me.”

How interesting that she’d choose this place. Lane supposed it was difficult to find a bit of quiet as an agent, when people were always approaching you about missions and equipment and placements and things. He’d never thought about her needing that kind of solitude before, other than at the rifle range—and he was surprised that her spot of refuge would be so near his team’s offices. The distant noises of typewriters and people running through the halls must drive her mad.

She motioned for him to take a seat, pulling her legs out of the second chair to make room for him. He gamely went over, put his file into the floor by the foot of the chair, and sat down, leaning back against the hard-backed metal with a sigh.

“You can prop your legs up, or—”

Lane didn’t realize he’d asked the question aloud until she gave him a strange look, and after a moment, shook her head no.

“I’m fine.”

He ran a hand through the back of his hair, pretending to need to fix it in order to avoid her steady gaze.

“I suppose the hum’s peaceful?” he asked after a moment, noticing the fuse box further down the wall from them; perhaps this had actually been a utility room of some kind, and they weren’t able to make all the necessary adjustments.

She held up a hand before he could say anything else.

“Someone’s coming.”

Through the glass, there was sudden movement as the door opened and Director Powell walked into the interrogation room. He closed the door behind him, and took a seat in the chair Lane had dusted off earlier. No sooner had he done this than he got back up again, tugging his handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiping down the table. Bits of dust flew everywhere in the dim light, but Powell was humming as he worked, and seemed very distracted—

“Oh, my god,” Viper sat up again, and tapped the back of Lane’s hand with her palm, twice, as if she were excited. “He’s meeting Maisie.”

“Who?”

“Carlborough,” she hissed, as if he should remember, but she sounded thrilled, even if it was supposed to be a rebuke. “Jesus, they’re idiots.”

It took another moment for her words to sink in. For god’s sake, was _that_ nonsense still going on?

“I suppose it was too much to hope that they’d called it off,” Lane grumbled.

Viper just laughed in a knowing way.

“Trust me. I saw them together last time—he wouldn’t.”

Lane chuckled at this statement, and then stopped, suddenly wondering if she had meant that observation to sound so prurient.

“What does that mean?” he asked slowly. The real question in his voice was obvious. _What did you see them doing?_

Viper was grinning, now, but before she could launch into her story, she’d grabbed Lane by the wrist again. In the middle of the open doorway—Powell had not yet noticed—stood the Duke himself.

“St. John,” he said coolly, shutting the door behind him.

Powell frowned as he looked over, and rose to his full height, clearly puzzled.

“I say—”

That was all he was able to get out before the Duke launched himself at Powell with a grunt, tackling the other man to the concrete floor amid a great clatter, shouting between great strikes of his fists as he rained blows down onto the director’s face.

“You got her _pregnant,_ you bastard!”

Lane was so stunned he couldn’t speak. The deer-in-headlights look on Powell’s face just before the Duke got in the first blow—and the furious way the two men continued to tussle on the ground, as if they were boys fighting in the schoolyard—he was never going to forget it as long as he lived.

Next to him, Viper was hunched over in spasms of laughter, her shoulders shaking, and one hand pressed to her mouth. The blanket that had covered her legs had now dropped to the floor.

“Don’t,” Lane begged in a whisper, struggling to hold back hysterics of his own as he watched her try to contain herself. “You’ll make me—”

Next door, a sudden knocking on the interrogation room door from the corridor, followed by a woman’s voice, made both men freeze in their respective positions on the floor, and caused Lane to start laughing in earnest.

“Director Powell, is everything all right? I heard the strangest noise!”

Viper had her hands balled against her mouth, now collapsed against Lane’s shoulder with uncontrolled mirth, while he was holding his sides, laughing so hard it was making his stomach hurt. He hoped the room was soundproofed, but perhaps it wasn’t. Perhaps they were in danger of being heard.

“Yes,” Powell managed to warble out after a moment, his voice strained. A bit of blood dribbled out one side of his nose. “Perfectly—fine, Sarah, thank you.”

The Duke was still sprawled on top of Powell, motionless, and both of them were watching the door with terrified expressions, as if it were going to fly open at any moment. When it did not, and the secretary’s high heels clacking against tile indicated she was going, the Duke shoved Powell away from him as he sat up, and got to his feet. Both of their suits and hair had gone wild from fighting, although Powell didn’t seem to have landed many blows at all.

“You’re going to do right by my girl,” Carlborough snarled.

Powell’s mouth fell open. “You can’t mean—?”

Viper giggled even harder.

“It’s not funny,” Lane kept muttering between gasps of laughter, pushing at her shoulder. Viper was swatting him with the palm of one hand in response, the same way one might bat away an annoying mosquito, but tears were streaming from her eyes. “Oh, god, it’s really not funny—”

**

“It’s not fair, you know.”

They were reviewing the full case for the first time, downstairs in Powell’s usual conference room. The man himself had been out for two days on _personal business_ – probably getting divorced, Lane thought with a sniff – and the hour was very late, so there was no danger of being discovered.

Viper glanced over at him over the top of her glasses, raising an eyebrow. “What isn’t?”

Lane flipped through the next few pages in his folio, pretending not to see her confusion. “Well, you know my name. Got to see it in my file and everything.”

There was a small pause.

“You want to get a look at my file?” Viper’s tone of voice said that she had a very good idea where that piece of information might be located.

His stomach jumped happily at the idea of learning all the small details associated with that document, but he pushed the excitement down. Wouldn’t do to find out something as important as her name by reading it in an agency file. He tried to temper his voice as he spoke.

“Just an observation, that’s all.”

She took off her glasses, toying them around in her hand for a moment. “I thought you were supposed to be an analyst?”

Lane had no idea what this meant. “What?”

“This,” Viper gestured around the rest of the room with one flat-palmed hand, sounding as if she were trying to point out something very, very obvious. “You collect and collate information on all sorts of people with something to hide.”

“No, well, that’s different,” Lane demurred, pulling a face. He steepled his hands across the nearest open folder, trying to put it into words. “Most of these people are concealing, well, terrible things. You know. Information you wouldn’t want anyone else to learn, even friends. And, obviously, your secret _is_ important, but not horrible. I’m sure it’s—very nice.”

His voice cracked over the last word, which made him wince.

“Thank you for the compliment.” Viper’s gaze was steady, which made him feel better about saying something so embarrassing. “But I wasn’t fishing.”

Lane was confused again. “Sorry. What did you mean?”

She shrugged. There was a mischievous gleam to her expression, now, but when she spoke, she affected innocence.

“You’ve got an office full of potential sources at your disposal. I’m sure a man like you could figure out one little secret.” She put her glasses on again, and one of her eyebrows quirked up in what he recognized as a challenging way.

His head was buzzing from the praise, so it took him another moment to parse the significance of her words, but when he did, and his eyes widened in recognition, the way she smiled back at him was worth it.

“ _Oh_.”

**

 

The following week, Lane received a package in the post. It was marked as misdelivered because it was sent to his flat under the wrong name, and was also accompanied by a long, florid letter done in shaky handwriting, from an old widow in Cornwall to a granddaughter in a delicate condition. His elderly landlady hadn’t known what to make of it, and had offered to return the package on her next trip to the post until he’d told the woman not to worry herself. She’d even made up her own little story about the event before he’d gone. _Oh, isn’t that sad. Poor thing’s probably gone a bit addled with worry._ As if nearly six years worth of war was the same thing as getting mixed up while using the gas range.

When he stepped inside his flat, closed the door, and got a better look at the letter, he realized it was written in a personal cipher he’d helped Viper develop months ago, and tore open the brown paper so quickly he nearly ripped the soft cover off the book it had concealed. It was a bright-colored volume that bore out its title in proud block letters. _What to Name the Baby._

He stared motionless at this title for a full ten seconds before realizing it must be part of the cipher, and subsequently rushed over to his desk to decode the rest of Viper’s letter. In the end, it turned out to be frustratingly brief.

_One, ten, fourteen, fifteen. Powers of four are key. Good luck._

And a closing salutation he didn’t understand at all: the letters _Y.A_.

The book turned out to be an A to Zed list of potential name choices—which, frankly, was a relief—and there was a page flagged in the first third of the book, just before the Gs.

**

Due to the significance of her mission, Viper was scheduled for three meetings with tactical services before leaving for Germany. She was keeping him informed of her schedule, and had even invited him to the first session, which would be similar to the one they’d shared just before the Rabat mission. After Agent Rizzo had walked Viper through the initial devices – a lensatic compass made to fit the face of an elegant watch, and a tiny transmitter concealed in a set of worn wedding bands, the diamond of which could be used to send an emergency RF signal – he was called away, leaving the two of them alone.

Lane watched as Viper poked at the wedding bands with the tip of her index finger. He couldn’t help but notice her left hand was bare—she’d stopped wearing her own rings weeks ago, and hadn’t said a word about it.

“Suppose it will be odd to wear them again.” He wasn’t certain how to broach this subject. “Do you often have to pretend you’re married, or—”

“Sometimes.” She pulled her hand back from the jewelry, and folded her hands in front of her on the table as she spoke. “My partner and I aren’t going in together this time. Maybe she’s just a widow.”

Viper glanced around once, and then lowered her voice, to the extent that he nearly had to read her lips to hear what she said next.

“Emma Churchill.”

Her alias. Lane grimaced. Why on earth would they give her the same surname as the Prime Minister? “It’s very English.”

She made an amused noise. “I know. I wanted to be Jane Churchill, since it favors the book, but security section had other ideas.”

He must have looked very flummoxed, because her mouth quirked up.

“It’s an Austen novel. Emma.”

“Are you supposed to be a relation?” Lane was on a completely different train of thought, turning over pieces in his mind. There had to be another reason she was given the name Churchill. Surely they wouldn’t want to put a target on her back? “Of the Prime Minister, I mean. He’s got a daughter.”

She looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should brush up on his background.”

The way her eyebrows suddenly knit together made him think she was worried about the alias itself, the mission at hand, or both.

“Yes, I agree…” he glanced back to see if any of the others were within earshot, found they were all occupied with other things across the room, and decided to try out one of the names he had flagged in his research, “Gail?”

Viper actually snorted, one hand flying to cover her mouth and muffle the sound before anyone else heard it.

“That’s my mother,” she told him a moment later, still chuckling.

Lane’s eyes had widened in sheer delight at her reaction. “Is it?”

That explained why the page had been cornered, perhaps. He’d gone down the list name by name, glancing only at the ones that featured four letters, or multiples of four. But even if this wasn’t Viper’s name, which was slightly disappointing, it was something to go by; it was something to tuck away into the back of his mind. Viper’s mother, Gail. And Gail’s daughter…hm. Perhaps she’d have a strong name, as well, something simple, but elegant.

“Do you share the same second name?” Lane kept talking in order to keep himself from grabbing any of the unknown objects on the table. He wanted something to do with his hands, something to fuss over.

“I was married,” Viper reminded him in a faux-stern way. He was about to apologize when she continued. “But they start with the same first letter. My maiden and married names.”

“Oh.” This was progress—and he remembered the letter in question. “Yes, hello, Prime Minister, have you met Mrs. Gail and her daughter, Agent H?”

“Don’t ever call my mother _Mrs_.,” Viper warned with a shushing noise. Lane followed her glance toward Agents Calvet and Ginsberg to see if they had heard, but they seemed to be absorbed in conversation. “She hates that.”

“Really?” Lane was grinning, but kept his voice as toneless as possible as he spoke. “Well, Mrs. H. You do surprise me.”

Her next exclamation threatened to ring out across the room.

“You just want to give me shit!”

Lane ducked his head to hide the fact that he was laughing again.

Across the room, Ginsberg scrubbed one hand over the back of his neck with a frustrated noise, trying not to pace.

“Why can’t we go back over there?”

“Oh, _mon dieu,_ ” Megan fixed him with a look that meant he should give it up already. “Just let them talk for a second. Put this together.”

She shoved the broken pieces of an L-shaped pipe together in his hands, like he was supposed to be fixing it. Jesus. The ball-joint was totally busted; anybody with half a brain knew that.

“What? Those two see each other all the time,” he complained. Too loud, judging by the way she was glaring at him. “They’re gonna mess up all my stuff—”

“Shh!” Megan commanded, sneaking a quick peek over at the far counter, then looking back at him and nodding her head in the other direction in a weird way, like he was supposed to know what was going on. He followed her gaze, putting the metal pieces aside. They were just talking. So what?

Okay, so Viper was smirking really big, like everything Pryce said was hilarious. He’d barely seen her crack a smile in the four years he’d been here. And the agent was fidgeting as he talked, kept crossing his arms over his chest, then uncrossing them, then keeping them by his sides—

Whatever he was saying must have been interesting, because Viper reached out and touched the side of Pryce’s hand, so quickly Ginsberg almost missed it, and then pointed toward the watch on the table, nodding her head as she spoke, like he had just made a good point. She didn’t even seem to notice the way the guy had started to poke at the side of that same palm with one thumb, kind of absentminded, like he could still feel her fingers on his wrist. The corners of his mouth kept turning up as she talked, smiling to himself, like he had a secret.

“They like each other,” Megan told him softly, pointedly.

“I _know_ that.” Ginsberg felt his face got hot all of a sudden, and wished she hadn’t stuck his nose into other people’s business. “I’m not an idiot!”

**

“If it was that bad, I’m surprised they didn’t take him out of field sooner.”

It was 4AM, and Megan was leading Brooklyn toward the wardrobe room so they could talk about redesigning her garters. She’d had a lot of issues with some stocking clasps on her last assignment—bad elastic, Megan guessed. But before the agent had arrived, they’d been talking about Phillips and the massive fuck-up in Sicily that got him sidelined for the rest of the war. According to Stan, who’d been in on the post-mission debriefing and saw Ford (rightly) lose his shit, if that guy ever saw a document again it might be too soon.

“Duck’s a good agent,” Brooklyn said quietly, pushing blonde hair away from her face with a wince. “He just needs to cut back.”

Jesus, were they all in love with each other? Sometimes Megan understood why certain agents would gravitate toward one another—Princess to Ossining because they were both beautiful and bored, Pryce to Viper because he worshipped her—but sometimes the couples made no fucking sense at all.

“Well, he can do that here as well as anyplace,” she said cheerfully, unlocking the door and stepping inside—but before Brooklyn could follow, the tiniest rustling from one corner of the dark room told them they weren’t alone.

Brooklyn flipped the nearest light switch, but let out a snort when they saw the source of the noise. She pushed the door closed with a foot.

“Well, look who it is.”

“Good morning, girls.” Viper’s tone was easy, and her posture forcefully relaxed, but Megan almost burst out laughing at the way she carefully replaced the empty hanger amid the sea of peignoirs, keeping a small burgundy slip draped over her left arm as she stepped off the small wooden stool. Although she moved purposefully, Megan was waiting for her to pull a teenage shoplifter and stuff it into the large purse that was hanging off her arm.

Megan always gave the female agents a fair amount of leeway when it came to their agency wardrobe. There were so few of them at this level, and they barely had personal lives. So if Princess borrowed a blouse or dress for a night out, and returned it within the week, Megan would just mark that item as being out for cleaning. In her mind, a girl needed special outfits for plenty of occasions that didn’t involve stealing classified information. What the boys and Ford didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.

What was funny was that Viper had never taken advantage of this little swap in all the time they’d worked together.

Brooklyn was grinning as she ducked behind the privacy screen to try on her newest outfits. Apparently she’d figured that much out, too, and wasn’t going to let it slide. “Someone’s got big plans.”

Viper didn’t deny it, just lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Some of us still have social lives.”

Megan knew why Viper hadn’t just gone out and bought something with coupons. If there was any inventory left in stores, it was rayon or polyester instead of real silk. But one benefit of working for the British government was that you got access to a lot of parachutes or tablecloths that had seen better days. It was easy to have these washed, cut into strategic pieces, sew them together and dye up a batch. As nightgowns, they were plainer than she normally would have liked, but Megan had an eye for design. She’d also sacrificed a few of the secretaries’ doilies for a few embellishment details.

“Oh, yeah? Who’s the latest toyboy?” Brooklyn emerged from behind the screen wearing a plain white slip, with a purple day dress in one hand, which she promptly gave to Megan. “This one fits.”

Megan gave the blonde a warning look. Did she not know what Viper was talking about? “Be nice.” She turned back to Viper with a knowing smile, carrying the dress to the nearest sewing table and setting it aside. “V, you’re not going to dinner, are you? Because I have something perfect in mind.”

“No dinner. Just drinks.” The slight smirk on Viper’s face said everything Megan needed to know about that. Hm. She must really like Pryce, if she was going to wear something sexy for him after a couple glasses of wine. Or she was worried about Berlin—but either way, it meant the woman deserved to have some fun.

She still asked the prying question. “So have you two gotten drinks before?”

“Wait.” Behind the screen, Brooklyn’s voice had turned more serious. “You’ve been seeing someone?”

“No,” said Viper, at the same time Megan chimed in with a quick “yes.”

Brooklyn laughed. Viper raised an eyebrow.

Megan’s mouth quirked in an innocent smile, not even bothering to add a disclaimer to her next sentence. “You two see each other all the time, technically.”

“Is it the Admiral?” Brooklyn sounded like she was grinning. “Cannonball.”

“Very funny,” Viper seemed to be mulling something over, and took the burgundy slip from where it draped across her arm, holding it up toward the light with a thoughtful expression.

“I need your opinion on this color,” she said eventually.

Megan glanced over. The plunging v-neck cut would be very flattering on Viper – not that the man would pay it much mind before ripping it off of her – but if she wanted something a little different, Megan was happy to offer suggestions.

“Okay. More fabric or less?” she asked first.

Viper’s mouth twitched up as if she wanted to smile. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, show him those darling little ankles,” Brooklyn volunteered with another laugh. Viper actually smiled this time. Must be some kind of in-joke.

“Well,” Megan considered alternatives, and nodded toward the item in Viper’s hand before she wrote a quick few lines in a nearby ledger. “If you’d like something more playful, there’s a light blue one in the same style that’s been tagged for cleaning. It’s not in my inventory right now.”

Pryce wore a lot of blue suits. And the aqua would match Viper’s eyes.

“I see.” Viper plucked it from the rack, picked up a single piece of tissue paper that she placed on top of the silk garment, and folded this deftly into the fabric, gathering the bundle into fourths until it was no bigger than a small hand towel. “Well, that’s very unfortunate.”

“I’m sure it will be back before you leave for Berlin,” Megan continued.

“Yes,” Viper replied smoothly, and slipped the parcel into her purse. “I’m sure it will be.”

**

That morning, Lane was pleasantly surprised to find a ciphered note tucked into his desk drawer, inviting him down to the rifle range at nine o’clock. Unfortunately, his excitement at this invitation was soon eclipsed by the sheer amount of work he needed to get done in the meantime. He was perilously close to forgetting all parts of the outside world. Every team needed Viper, these days. Future operations planning was only one of them.

Shortly afterward, he got into a very stupid argument with his secretary over some poor transcriptions, and by that night, he had such a headache it took all of his effort not to put his head down on his desk, right there in his office.

Thankfully, there was a room with a single bunk located on the other side of their floor. He decided to use it. He ought to be fresh if he and Viper were going to spend any decent time together.

Scarlett seemed stunned when she saw him emerge from his office before seven p.m. without any files, and even more so when he locked the door behind him.

“I’m going to have a lie-down,” Lane told her with a sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t phone me for anything else tonight—and for god’s sake, don’t tell people where I’ve gone.”

The young woman nodded once, mute.

He didn’t give it further thought. In fact, there were so few thoughts in his head as he walked inside the cramped bunk, and shut the door, that he barely had enough sense to take his jacket and vest off and wind the alarm clock on the nearby writing desk before falling face-first into the single bed.

His eyes fluttered once, twice, and he felt himself drifting off.

**

The next thing he knew, there was a hand on his shoulder, and he was blinking open bleary eyes to stare at Viper, who was sitting further down the bed, leaning over him with a strangely sympathetic look on her face.

“You didn’t come down,” she murmured, leaning back again and putting a hand down on the blankets next to one of his legs. “I was worried.”

“Damn it,” he mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face and eyes. “Thought I set the alarm—god, I’m sorry—”

Lane sat up to glance at the clock, and groaned when he saw the time. Hands had stopped just before quarter to ten. Christ. He must not have wound it properly.

“Go back to sleep.” She put a hand on his outstretched arm. “I won’t mind.”

Lane made a face that said he wouldn’t dare, and stayed upright, waving away her concern. “No. We’ll spend some time.” He let out a sigh, looking up at her and hoping she could forgive his rudeness. “I’m sorry we didn’t go shooting.”

Viper’s hand had drifted from his arm to rest on his leg, just above his knee, fingers idly moving back and forth across a small patch of blanket. Lane wanted to ask her why she was touching him this way, except that he couldn’t get the words to leave his mouth. He didn’t want her to stop.

Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t say anything, just leaned foward and kissed him. When she pulled away, her free hand still cupping his jaw, a beautiful flush was creeping its way into her cheeks, and her smile had turned a bit wicked.

“I’m not.”

Without another word, Lane pulled her forward into his lap, eliciting an amused yelp from her as she balanced for purchase. His hands roamed over her generous hips, but she nudged one of them aside with a smile as she reached down to tug at her zipper. Her khaki skirt was soon open down one side, and as she pulled up the tails of her blouse, he caught a glimpse of bright blue fabric peeking out from under her waistband. Then they were kissing again, breaking apart so she could pull her blouse off. Her body was draped in bright silky lingerie, dyed lace playing over the swell of her breasts. Oh, my god. _She’d planned this._ He let out a moan, and she kissed him so fiercely he felt himself start to tremble all over.

After several more minutes spent locked in an ardent embrace, her fingers found the top buttons of his shirt, and she began to undo them, kissing her way down his neck as she worked.

“Viper—mm—”

He hissed out a breath as she tugged up his shirttails, her hands skimming over his bare sides. She laughed against his skin as she did this, but when she bent her head to whisper in his ear, her voice turned serious.

“It’s Joan.”

Lane pulled away to stare at her. Oh my god. _Joan._ He took her face between his hands, kissing her with as much passion as he could muster—certain he had never been so happy.

“I didn’t think you’d tell me,” he blurted, soon as he pulled away, and she laughed a little, her blue eyes full of mischief as she went to kiss him, accidentally catching the corner of his mouth instead of his lips. Her palm skated across the scratch of stubble at his jaw.

 _Joan._ Of course it was. _Joan._ Oh, it suited her perfectly.

“Beautiful.” He traced a path up her inner thigh with his fingers, relishing the way she squirmed in excitement, the way her mouth fell open against his cheek. “Lovely, darling—”

She thrust her hips up to meet his hand, eliciting a surprised noise from him before he could finish the sentence.

“Dirty,” she whispered in a high voice, and he nearly giggled.

“Hm.” His fingers went to tease her most sensitive spot, found her slick with need already, and after a moment, she let out a little gasp, her body tensing briefly.

“Lane.”

It was a whisper, barely audible, but it drove him mad.

He kept touching her, felt her little gasps and her tense muscles and her body pressed against his in the dim light of this plain room, and tried to memorize every detail of her face. The way she buried her face in his neck when she fell apart at his hands—the way she clung to him—and when she reached for his belt—murmured encouraging words, and locked her legs around his waist—

Oh, he was lost.

_Joan—_

**

When he awoke, she was nearly dressed and had her blouse buttoned, zipping up her skirt and adjusting it around her waist. The lamp was off—Lane had no idea how that had happened—but he was still half-asleep, and didn’t understand why she was leaving until he heard an insistent male voice at the door, outside.

“Jesus!” There was a jingling noise as keys were inserted into the lock, turned with no luck, and taken out. “One of these has to work.”

In a flash, Viper had crossed the room and yanked open the door, just enough to wedge herself into the few inches of space between the hall and the barely-open doorway.

“Holy shit,” exclaimed the same male voice. “Aren’t you…?”

Vi— _Joan_ wasted no time with pleasantries; her hand darted out to grab what turned out to be a brass keyring with ten or twelve keys on it, and her voice was pitched at the low, dangerous level Lane recognized from their mission.

“You wake me up again, and I break every one of your fingers.”

“Harry,” said a woman’s voice, urgent and nervous, “come on.” There was a pause. “Sorry. We’re really sorry.”

Joan shut the door and locked it, rolling her eyes as she met Lane’s confused gaze. After a moment, she returned to the bedside, winding the clock, then setting it aside and untucking her shirt—which, Lane realized after a second of studying it, was actually _his_ shirt.

He reached out to press a palm against her waist.

“Come back to bed?”

She paused, and put her hand over his, not unkindly. “I am.”

“Oh.” He felt stupid for asking, but when she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, folding and placing it on top of the small wooden chair just opposite the bed, he felt a little better. She wasn’t even wearing her slip or knickers underneath this outfit, just her brassiere, which she swiftly removed and set aside.

“Scoot over,” she said, motioning that he should move toward the wall, and placing his clothes onto the top of the desk in a messier pile. “It’s cold in here.”

That was the problem with basement-level sleeping quarters; they were always so dreary, and the damp sheets didn’t help in that regard. But it was so lovely to be together this way. He couldn’t bring himself to mind the damp with her sliding into bed next to him. Because he was turned towards the wall, she needed a moment to get comfortable, arranging her body so she was pressed close behind him, with one arm up by her head and one hand resting on his hip. Considering how narrow the bunk was, it ought to have been impossible to fit two people, but in this particular case, Lane didn’t mind a bit.

He could feel her let out a sigh, and couldn’t help smiling.

“All right?” he asked.

After a small pause, she kissed the side of his neck, and moved her hand so her fingers were flush at his side. They were slightly cool to the touch, and felt wonderful against his overheated skin.

“Better,” she said.

**

At the second tactical services session, there was no teasing, or laughing, or joking of any kind, despite the usual personalities in the room being present. Lane could sense Joan’s mood the moment he stepped into the room; her face was impassive, and professional to a fault. She asked short, halting questions of the other agents, and did not write down their replies. He recognized these mannerisms from their earlier meetings. When she had composed herself into such perfect stillness, and began to rely on her memory alone and not the papers, it meant that she was preparing herself for the role in earnest, trying to slip into character even while being in a perfectly familiar place.

This did not stop him from saying hello, or offering her an understanding smile when Agent Calvet called Agent Rizzo away from the table. And Viper did smile back; it was not very bright, but her expression had turned much softer than he had anticipated, and so he was not offended by the silence.

“Do you want to go shooting next week?” he asked her, after it was all over, and they were alone in the elevator.

Last time they’d have the chance for months—if all went well. He did not want to dwell on the alternative.

She nodded once, the motion jerky and stiff. “Thursday. Usual time.”

“Right,” he muttered, as the doors opened.

**

Twenty people were crowded into a room suited for no more than five or ten, the air heavy and thick with hours’ worth of stale tobacco smoke. Twelve boxes of files regarding the mission were stacked all across the table and even plastered along the walls. Maps of Germany in various detail were hung up next to each other with military precision, scissored by a large collection of color-coded strings attached to thumbtacks, detailing troop movements, Allied operations, the locations of the nearest prison camps—anything within a fifty mile radius of Berlin.

Next to these were tacked the photographs: street shots of companies, government buildings, target houses—and also the pictures of those people who were to be surveilled in those locations, all labeled with names and positions. It must have taken the secretaries days to prepare.

Powell had spoken, and introduced the others, Ford had spoken, Cooper had given a brief talk about the placement of other spooks in the region, and then Lane had fielded nearly four hours worth of questions on mission-related information, interrupted only by asides or questions from Viper or the rest of the group—all professional, naturally.

Just when he believed the meeting to be over, a precise knock at the door – four swift taps, followed by two short ones – caused Sergeant Cosgrove to open the door, and the room to jump to attention once they saw who he had admitted.

Jock Colville slicked his dark hair back with one hand, his wiry frame belied by the dark wool suit he was wearing. “Director Powell. Major Ford. I am bade urgently by my employer to deliver this personal message.”

As he spoke, a hush fell over the room. No one dared even to move, lest they call attention to themselves. Colville gave the crowd a single nod, pulled a plain envelope from his jacket pocket, and broke the seal, his low voice carrying to every corner of the room as he read the letter’s contents.

“ _I have taken occasion to send my principal private secretary to you tonight, for the mission you are about to undertake represents our nation’s supreme sacred interest, and would not be possible without your most grueling and dedicated work. In this operation, as in all things, you have my faith, confidence and deepest regard.”_ Colville cleared his throat, and refolded the letter. “ _Give them hell.”_

There was silence. Lane barely dared to breathe.

“Mr. Colville,” Ford said immediately. “Please send the Prime Minister our most sincere appreciation for his good wishes. I believe I speak for the room when I convey that our branch is proud to be of service during our hour of need.”

Colville jotted this down with lightning speed, and then turned to Viper.

“Shall there be any reply, madam?”

Oh, dear god, she was meant to give Churchill a personal message? Lane felt his own heartbeat whooshing in his ears. He was anxious _for_ her.

“I—appreciate his candor and support at such a momentous time.” Viper cleared her throat, straightened her shoulders, and met the eyes of the others without flinching. “We shall fight until the very end.”

Colville flipped his stenography pad closed, and gave the letter in question to Joan, which she accepted with a slow, but steady hand.

“We fight,” Cooper’s voice carried through the room as if he were making a toast, and the words echoed around and around the small space, over and over and over like the swell of applause.

**

“Erm.” Lane took another swig of his wine from the thermos cap, avoiding Joan’s eyes. The target he’d shot had been rubbish tonight, and conversation was a bit stilted. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. She was probably anxious, and naturally he wasn’t much better off, so here they were. Drinking and making stupid small talk in the middle of the rifle range, at midnight. "Do you want another?"

He proffered the cup to Viper, who glanced at it with a wistful expression. “Oh. I probably shouldn’t.”

“But—you don’t leave—tomorrow, do you?”

She fixed him with a gaze that said he was not to ask that sort of question. “It’s not immediate, no.”

“But it’s…within the timeline, I imagine,” Lane set the cup back onto the little ledge between them, next to Viper’s unloaded gun. According to the files, her due window opened within the next three days.

“It is.”

In one quick motion, she picked up the cup, drained it, and set it down again, reaching into her little box of bullets. Lane barely had enough time to get the earmuffs on before she’d aimed at the target and fired five quick shots with her pistol, a neat cluster to the chest.

Hang on—only five? Why was she waiting?

He watched. Joan let her arms relax, bent her elbows and slouched her stance before snapping back into position and firing the last bullet.

Lane was certain that one had been meant for the middle of the forehead. It was one of her favorite shots; she could have been a damn good sniper, really—but on this occasion, and on this night, her bullet did not hit its target.

Instead, there was a large hole several inches to the right of the target’s silhouette head. They stared at this single rift in the paper for at least twenty seconds, silent.

“Fuck,” Viper muttered at last, and shoved her gun down onto the ledge with the air of someone who wanted to break it into a thousand pieces. Lane barely had enough time to catch the taut self-loathing on her face before he was reaching out for her, pressing one hand over hers as it braced against the counter.

“Joan, it’s a single shot—it doesn’t mean—you can’t think that it—”

“But I do,” she said flatly, and glanced up at him. Her blue eyes bored into his, unblinking, and for a second the twitch of her pursed mouth made him think she might cry. Her voice was very low. “I’ve been putting this off for years.”

Her last mission? Her death? Every time Lane thought about her not coming back, it was as if an ache had opened up in his chest; it made him feel faint with dread.

“No. It—it just can’t be,” he sputtered first, reaching out for her again. His palm splayed against her bicep and his other hand was clutching her fingers so tightly he was sure the knuckles were white. “I won’t let it, because you’ve got to come back. You must. You’ve just got to.”

Viper closed her eyes, as if the conversation was physically painful, but she did not pull away from his touch. Her voice was a whisper.

“I can’t promise that.”

Lane’s throat constricted in an alarming way, and he nearly jerked his hands back, but Viper opened her eyes, and reached out with the palm that had been lying flush against the counter, putting a cool hand against his cheek.

“What are you—?” he sputtered, but she shook her head once, and he went silent, peering at her with his pulse racing in his throat and his face hot from the way she was still touching him. Why was she—what was she—

Her expression faltered as he stared back at her, and it was only then that he noticed just how much effort it was taking her to remain impassive. Her hands shook against his skin and her mouth kept pursing up and the brightness in her eyes was clearly not due to a trick of the light, although no tears fell from her lashes.

“I wish we’d had more time,” she said finally, and Lane actually grabbed for her—took her face between his hands and kissed her so deeply that when they finally parted, minutes later, they were both gasping, Lane pressing her up against the side of the little cubicle and Joan with her dress in disarray, her hands clutching at the back of his shoulders.

“Make love to me,” she breathed.

He sank to his knees, pulled down her knickers, and put his mouth on her first; savored her muffled cries as he licked into her, touched her, tasted her. He kissed her open and stroked her to fruition until she was soaking wet, incoherent, until her legs trembled as wildly as a newborn colt’s, and when she came a second time he could not help touching himself through his trousers, wanting to prolong his own pleasure for as long as possible.

She needed this. _She needed him._

“Oh, oh,” she sobbed, as his slick fingers now rubbed her oversensitive spot. She slumped forward and sank down next to him on weak knees, one hand trailing over the front of his trousers. “Please.”

He kissed her again, and kept caressing her until she groaned low in her throat, moving his hands away and fumbling at his trousers and zipper until she’d pulled him on top of her, until he’d pushed into her in one smooth stroke.

“Yes,” she gasped as he sped up his thrusts, “there—”

“That’s it, darling,” he whispered, moving faster. “That’s it.”

She was trembling like a leaf, and curled into him with a shout—he was so close, so close, oh, god, he could feel it building—loved how she felt around him, loved everything about—oh, god, he was going to come—

“I—I love you,” he gasped, and shuddered inside her.

The words echoed throughout the concrete room among all the other noises— _love you love you love you_ —and in the stillness that followed, Lane found he was too frightened to meet Joan’s gaze, in case she was angry, or in case he glanced down and saw horror reflected in her face.

They could only lie together for so long, however, even at this time of night, and so by the time he had pulled away and cleaned himself up a bit, he was ready to flee with what remained of his tattered dignity. Oh, god, why had he blurted out something so stupid? Of course he wasn’t _in love with her._

“Lane?”

He thought about her all the time, her full laugh and her quick wit and her candor and the way she’d carefully file through her mission briefs…oh, god. He felt it bubbling up again, the weight of it choking him.

_I do love you. I’ve always loved you._

Had she said something? Lane glanced sideways. Next to him, Viper was fixing her stocking, her well-manicured hands adjusting the top of it along her silky pale thigh before attaching the garter clip and smoothing the hem of her long dress back into place. When she realized he was watching her, or at least, when she looked up at him, one eyebrow arched up in a puzzled way. The following rush of tenderness made his stomach flip.

“Joan,” he blurted first as she stood up, averting his eyes to the counter. “The—what I said, before—”

Her voice was low, possibly panicked. “Don’t.”

“It was—I suppose I just got a bit—and so it was—”

Joan’s hand was on his arm, and when he looked over, she leaned in and kissed him. It was not rushed this time, but slow, almost chaste, and when she pulled away he blinked open confused eyes to stare at her.

“Please don’t do that,” she said.

He felt a strange mix of relief and disappointment course through his veins. She wasn’t angry, thank god, but it was clear she did not return those feelings—even if she liked him well enough—whatever she felt for him, it was not love, it was not enough to return the loaded words. He tried not to let the unease show on his face.

“Just be careful,” he murmured, once it was clear she wasn’t going to fill the silence, and after no more than a second’s pause, she drew him into a hug.

They stood together in the silence for a long time, Viper oddly quiet, her hands pressed flat against his back and shoulders, and Lane with his eyes closed, just breathing out and in, trying to commit the smallest details to memory. The way she folded into his arms, the fragrance of her floral shampoo, the way she clung to him when they made love.

_Come back to me. Please._

**

The confirmation message was given to his team two days later; a small typed telegram sent by a contact now in the Scandinavian region, and in the agreed-upon code. AUNT GRACE. STOP. PACKAGE MAILED. STOP. HOPE SHE IS USEFUL. STOP. YOUR WILEY.

Lane tried to breathe around the large lump of fear that sat high in his chest, and willed himself to be calm. So she had made it. She was inside the German border—now Emma Churchill, the wife of a missing English diplomat—poised to finish out the rest of her war work.

She’d be all right. He kept repeating it to himself over and over. She had to be all right—he had to believe that everything was well, and that she was going about her business in the heart of that city like any other person—because the alternative would paralyze him, would rip a jagged wound inside him.

_I love you._

_Don’t say that._

_Come back. Come back._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, an update! I had to split this into two parts because it was growing enormous, but next chapter is definitely the last one. I wrote most of it when I went to England over the summer and just couldn't figure out how to bridge the gap between this part and the chunk of plot that I had outlined. Story of my life!
> 
> FYI, [Jock Colville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jock_Colville>Jock%20Colville) is a real person, and was Churchill's assistant private secretary before the war (and afterward), although he took some time in between to serve in the army. I gave him a little promotion here just for kicks. :P


	4. Chapter 4

_three months earlier_

 

“Come on,” Viper took another drink of wine, glancing over at him with an amused expression. In the dim light of the utility room, he saw the way her eyes sparkled as she looked over. “You really didn’t make any special requests?”

He didn’t realize they were able to make requests about what type of services they wanted. As far as he’d been told, the offices were only supposed to know your next of kin and make notifications, get everything in order. “Just put down the usual things, I suppose. Nothing much.”

“Oh, that’s no fun.” She looked a bit disappointed.

“Well, all right. What did you put down?”

Viper smiled. “Do you remember The Blue Angel? Marlene Dietrich?”

“Oh, god, yes. She was my brother’s favorite for years.” Recognition caught up with him. “Hang on.”

Ten minutes later he could hardly speak for laughing, flipping through a small notebook in which she’d written a long list in slanted shorthand. “So, apart from the German-language version of _Naughty Lola—”_

“Played on the accordion.”

“—naturally—and a red rose for every seduction you’ve made in the field, and a solemn recitation of,” he peered down through his glasses, “oh, I can’t read this one, sorry.”

She was biting her lip, trying not to laugh. “Oscar Wilde.”

“Oh, good god!”

“Who cares what they read? Nobody important’s going to be there, so it doesn’t matter,” she insisted again, passing him the cup.

“It ought to be solemn. They’ll send your mother a flag.”

“But she won’t get to go. Ford and Powell have to attend. Maybe Roger or Cooper. That’s it.”

Lane made a skeptical noise. “They’d let other people in, surely.”

She shook her head. “Tragedy-seekers. I don’t have any friends here.”

“There’s tactical services,” Lane said immediately. He thought she and Calvet might be friends, plus, she was always kind to the other two lads. “And—and your other agents.”

“That’s four,” she said. “Seven if the ones who hate me show up.”

“And you’ve got me, technically speaking.”

Viper let out a sigh. “You don’t want to go to my funeral.”

The mood threatened to shift. Lane quickly tried to bring it back to the realm of the amusing. “Well—now I feel quite stupid. I did not know you could ask for anything so specific.”

She gestured toward him with an open hand, rifling through the pages of her notebook as if wondering what he’d written down in return. “Did you at least pick a hymn, or anything?”

“Nearer My God To Thee,” Lane muttered after a moment—a song that he had always thought very nice. It was appropriate for a solemn occasion, not too florid or overdramatic.

Her expression suggested she found this choice galling. “The one they played as Titanic sank?”

“Damn it!” Lane started laughing again, more out of shock at being teased than anything else. He grabbed the notebook out of her hands, scribbling in shorthand as fast as he could write. “Well, fine, then—as of this moment, Mongoose will accept nothing at his funeral but a big brass band. Please be advised to play only John Philip Sousa marches, and please inter him in the most ornate part of the mildewed basement. He does so like a view.”

Viper was giggling so helplessly she was out of breath.

**

Stuck in the hard wooden pew in the little windowless room as he stared at the white lily wreath and black crepe hangings in utter disgust, a furious tic made Lane’s hands shake and his body vibrate with rage. _This isn’t what she wanted. It isn’t right. She was supposed to have red roses and that goddamned ridiculous song and—_

“We are here today to honor one of our own,” Powell was saying in a dolorous monotone, “an imitable agent whose sense of duty—”

Oh, god, it was awful. Lane choked out a noise that wasn’t a laugh; it was nearly hysterical, it threatened to upset the entirety of the ceremony. He stumbled to his feet and through the outer door, unable to listen to the rest. But there was no peace to be found in the halls; the door to the funerary room swung open again to reveal the young blonde woman who he’d first met in Rabat—another agent, he knew now.

Her pale blue eyes seemed to burn clear through him. “You have to pull yourself together.”

The back of his neck prickled hot with anger. “I’m fine.”

“Look.” She spoke very calmly. “You know why they’re doing this. Viper’s—”

“There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation,” Lane sputtered, refusing to let her say the dreaded word. _Missing._ “The lines are down. Berlin is—bombarded. She’s keeping herself out of harm’s way—and—and avoiding—”

The blonde crossed her arms over her chest. “It’s been weeks since her last scheduled drop, and she missed it.”

“Don’t,” Lane muttered.

“Oh, would you rather she got captured? Because that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“She—she could survive it,” he said weakly, picturing her in some grey government facility, being interrogated for hours at a time and then tossed back into a freezing jail cell. “They wouldn’t—she’s—valuable. They can’t hurt her.”

“Can’t and won’t are two different—”

“Stop it!” Lane roared. The words echoed down the long hallway until they were unrecognizeable, a wordless, raw bark of denial.

Brooklyn was silent for several more moments, her mouth pursing up. “Pryce, even if she’s alive, the woman you know isn’t coming back.”

For a terrible moment, he was so angry he wanted to push her away. “She is not dead. I _will not believe it!_ ”

He closed his eyes against the words echoing in his head.  _Come back._

_Lane, I can’t promise that._

Joan had guaranteed him nothing: not her life, not her death, not even her love. And now she was missing, and she hadn’t made contact in eight weeks, and no one, not a single person, believed she could have survived—they, who knew all her skills! Who had benefited from her all her life!

“Listen.” The woman raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, and then pulled a small envelope from her jacket pocket: stationery-sized. “Before she left, she made me promise to deliver this. I didn’t know if it was in case of death, or what, but either way, it’s yours.”

Lane took it at once, fingers shaking like mad as he put the letter into his inner jacket pocket. He couldn’t look at it. He couldn’t even read the front flap, just had to stare at a distant spot on the dingy tile until he could control himself.

When he looked up again, Brooklyn was gone.

**

A few nights later, Lane arrived at work to find an eerie silence had descended upon his team’s offices, which perplexed him. Downstairs, everything had seemed in order, if a bit scattered. The secretaries were at their desks, and people were taking meetings or exchanging notes on various files, but around his office, and in the corridors nearest his team’s annex, there was no activity at all.

No one working at their desks. No one on the telephones. No one making any noise at all.

Upon investigation, he noticed that although the reel room door was closed, further down the hall, there was light flickering underneath it. Once he pushed it open, and saw nearly twenty ashen faces staring past him at the images, expressions slack with horror, he turned to the projection screen to see what they were watching.

He hit the basement corridor at a near-run, hours later, unspeakable images burned into his mind—living skeletons shuffling around in mud and filth, tortured and starved and diseased as they endured in hellish conditions beyond all reason—as everyone they knew died like animals.

_Oh, god. Oh, god._

His breath came shallow and quick and he felt dizzy, crumpling into a sort of sitting position against the nearest wall, and tipping his head back against the damp bricks. His fingers went to touch the letter in his front pocket, the envelope now soft at the edges and slightly rounded from where it lay over his chest, every day. He hadn’t been able to open it, terrified to read what could be Joan’s last goodbye. Terrified because he did not feel like she had died, because he was just sick with fear, every day, waiting for further news.

For a horrible moment, he wished he could give up on this instinct, this stupid folly, because what was the alternative? Brooklyn had said it herself. Why did he want Joan to be alive if it meant she was imprisoned in a place like the ones he’d—oh, god, don’t think about that—

Piles of rotting corpses. Ashes spilling out of oven grates.

_No, she can’t be there, she isn’t there, she’s in Berlin alive she’s safe_

A piercing scream rang down the corridor, and it startled Lane so much he almost ripped the lining of his jacket as he yanked his hand away from the letter. But the sound had cleared his head of the freezing suffocation, if not the anxiety.

_You’ve got to help. Get up. Get up._

Another scream followed, and another—wild, primal yells that could only mean the worst. Lane picked himself up, his wobbly legs almost refusing to cooperate, and as he stumbled toward the nearest set of double doors, he suddenly recognized where he was by the scorch mark in the middle of the wood, the lack of windows to view the other side. Tactical Services.

He pushed one door open, barely more than an inch, eyes sweeping the corridor for possible hostiles. No smoke or noise to suggest a fire or some other kind of accident. As he stepped inside, movement from the larger room drew his eye, and Lane kept very still as he observed it.

Next to the briefing table, Ginsberg was collapsed on his knees; his hands scratched and strained against Rizzo’s arms. The bigger man was kneeling, too, holding him from behind, and pressing the lad’s back against his chest like a father might hold his son. Ginsberg’s mouth was open, and Lane realized with dismay that he was the one who had screamed, but no sound was coming out now, just a horrible, raw rattle of breath as he tried to shout again. His eyes were squeezed closed and he was shaking visibly, angry, hysterical. But Rizzo kept his arms locked around the boy’s chest, and after another moment, the two of them fell backwards into a sort of seated position.

Rizzo began to say something to Ginsberg over the boy’s shoulder, soft, hushed, and after a moment Calvet walked into view and knelt down next to the pair of them, put a hand on Ginsberg’s splayed leg. The boy had stopped fighting. He just sat there, gaze stuck to the floor, limp and gasping for breath.

Fear rooted Lane’s legs to the floor. He couldn’t move. He hoped desperately that they wouldn’t notice him.

Calvet’s voice cracked audibly when she spoke. Her hands made a soothing circling motion over Ginsberg’s knee. “Oh, Michael.”

Rizzo had loosened his grip and was now rubbing one of the boy’s arms as he held him, up and down, the way a child might try to calm a frightened animal.

“They’re dead,” Ginsberg finally croaked out, the words echoing around and around the room. A terrible grey pallor darkened his face. “All dead. Jesus Christ.”

Lane fled.

**

Weeks later, Lane still couldn't look at the pictures or the reels. Every time he so much as glimpsed a single image of those horrors, he knew he was searching for some sign of Joan in those poor haunted gazes, and was ashamed by the mixture of nauseous relief that surged in his chest when he realized this wasn't her, looked nothing like her. It was someone else's lover. It was someone else's child.

Oh, he was such a revolting bastard.

Between the volume and the nature of the work, Scarlett was the only person to steer him toward anything resembling a normal routine, and so when she approached his desk one evening with his coat in one hand, just short of six o’clock, he did not have the foggiest idea what he’d forgotten.

“Dinner with your brother,” she prompted quietly. “You have to go.”

Lane felt sick with dread. “Oh, no, not that. Not tonight.”

“You have to go,” she said again, in a sort of dreary monotone. Least she wasn’t trying to be cheerful. “He needs someone to celebrate with.”

The demob. The bloody age and service number. Lewis was an officer and an old man compared to the rest. Of course he’d gotten out quickly. Christ.

“Can’t I just phone over and say I’m ill?” he begged her, the offer halfhearted.

She shook her head, and seemed disappointed. “You have to go. You have to support him.”

When Lane arrived at the restaurant – some steakhouse that hadn’t lived up to its name in far too long – he saw a great crowd around one of the middle tables, and waded through it to find two men in dark naval dress uniforms shaking hands with what appeared to be the cook, several civilians, and a couple of giggling girls.

Lewis looked just like their father with that seadog beard, Lane thought uncharitably, but when his brother turned to him and pulled him into a tight embrace, he tried to soften his judgmental thoughts.

“Little brother,” Lewis said as he released him. A wide smile spread over his face. “I’m quite at my leisure.”

“You do—seem well,” Lane said as they sat down. He didn’t think to ask why the table was set for three people until the other uniformed man—much younger, with a wave of neat blonde hair and a very thin frame—sat down in the chair next to Lewis, and gave Lane a strange, furtive smile across the table.

“Bryant,” Lewis said airily, already absorbed in his menu, “my younger brother, Lane. Lane, one of my lieutenants, Mark Bryant.”

“So pleased to meet you,” the chap said, extending his hand in a very earnest way. “The commander speaks very highly of you.”

“Yes. Erm, pleasure.” Lane didn’t understand why some poor boy would want to go to dinner with his direct officer, but perhaps he didn’t have any family to welcome him home. It was surprisingly astute of Lewis to have noticed such a thing. “When—did you come ashore?”

“Few days ago.” Lewis took a drink of his wine, and let out a pleased sigh. “God, how delightful. But you ought to have seen the young pups assemble their demob suits. Bloodier than the last six months put together—oh, for god’s sake, Bryant, take care before you stain your collar.”

He tossed a white napkin into the lieutenant’s lap.

The lad flushed, and quickly mopped at his face with one hand and then with the cloth, where a trickle of wine had spilled past the corner of his mouth. But he still laughed once this was done, as if his lapse of manners, and Lewis’s comment on them, was the funniest thing in the world.

Lane tried not to grimace as he watched the two of them talk back and forth about the menu and what the kitchen was apparently willing to scrape together for their celebration. Perhaps that was the real reason the boy was here—because he was starry-eyed over being favored by his superior. And Lewis probably just wanted an adoring acolyte to follow him around.

Of course Lewis would take advantage of someone so young and uncultured. He always liked to seem superior. Even if these two men were friends—and they did seem friendly—it was galling for Lewis to further his authority in such a strange way. They weren’t even under the Royal Navy’s command, now. There was no reason for the boy to hang about and be subject to so much scrutiny over dinner, even if he did want a promotion, or whatever.

“And how are things with the civvies, dear brother? Your last letter was very foggy.”

Dear god. Lane tried to make conversation, repeat the patent lie he’d always hated, but in truth, all he wanted was to go home and lie down and think about nothing at all. The only thoughts that were in his head were of pictures from the reels and a swarm of instructions from some ridiculous film studio, trying to seize production, and it was all so useless without Joan here. It was all so meaningless.

“Commander,” said the boy, with a sly look at Lewis as he cut into his steak, “chickies, nine o’clock.”

Lane didn’t even bother glancing over. He heard girlish shrieks and saw the lieutenant wave and wink at a table somewhere behind him.

Lewis arched an eyebrow. “By all means, extend our kindest invitations.”

And suddenly Lane couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t sit here and saw at some mangled rabbit-steak that tasted like paper. He didn’t want to drink cheap wine and feign interest in a bunch of love-struck girls and pretend that he was celebrating.

What on earth was there to celebrate? Lewis was acting like a stranger and Lane was miserable and Joan was—Joan was—

Oh, god, what if she really was dead? Was he a fool, to believe she wasn’t?

The lieutenant had already left the table to gather up the girls, and so with some horrible sputtered apology, Lane stumbled away from his brother, out of the restaurant and into the street.

He’d no sooner let out a relieved breath at being away from that place when he heard footsteps behind him, and a low voice calling his name.

“What on earth is the matter with you?” Lewis put a cigarette to his lips and lit it, exhaling a long drag of smoke. “You’re being very rotten. We’ve got company.”

“Yes, I’m the rotten one,” Lane huffed, on the verge of laughing, although the night wasn’t funny at all. “I come here for a quiet dinner with my brother, and find this—this _sideshow_ in its place! Why did you invite me? You don’t even care if I’m here or not!”

He could see the table even from the window: four girls surrounded the empty chairs, and the young lieutenant sat smack in the middle of them. Two of these girls were sneaking bits of food from Lane’s plate. One in a faded red skirt suit sat down directly on the lieutenant’s lap.

“Oh, of course you don’t know how to have any fun,” Lewis said sourly. “Forgive me for thinking you’d put in a bit of effort for a special occasion.”

A young mother carrying a little boy touched the elbow of his brother’s jacket, her face lit up with awe just as they passed. “God bless you for your service.”

“And yours, my darling.” Lewis tipped his officer's hat to her.

It only made Lane more furious, watching good-meaning people idolize his brother just because the man was in uniform. Anyone in uniform could seem impressive, even if they hadn’t done a goddamned thing for their country other than sign up and follow orders when asked!

_Joan did so much to keep these people safe, risked her life again and again, and they will never even know her name. They will never understand how much she sacrificed to save them._

“You act as if you’re so incredible,” Lane snarled, gesturing at the window toward their former table, “when all along, you’ve just—all you care about is getting strangers to fawn over you!”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Lewis said scornfully as he tossed down his cigarette, “if you’re going to stand there and throw a little jealous tantrum all evening, then by all means, run along home. I’ll celebrate in your stead. Congratulations on my safe return. I’ve done my little mother proud.”

Lane put a hand to his face, so stung by the mention of their mother that he thought he might actually weep. “Yes, here’s Mummy’s strong lad back from the war, with his sycophantic pawn and herd of stray cats who’ll mount anything in uniform. People buy them drinks and steaks and starve in their homes for the privilege of seeing them. Isn’t it lovely? Isn’t he heroic?”

As Lane spoke, Lewis’s eyes grew cold, expression taut with fury.

“I’m going now,” Lane continued flatly, resisting the urge to touch the letter in his breast pocket. _I’m sorry. I’m sorry._ “Ring me up if you decide to care about anything other than yourself.”

After a long Tube ride full of delays, and after he trudged up the stairs to his flat and closed the door behind him, he stood motionless in the low light of the table lamp. Automatically, his hand darted to his jacket pocket, desperate for some kind of good news to end the day.

_Just open it._

Mind made up, he pulled out the letter and turned the envelope over in his hands one last time before taking up his stiletto knife and slicing into the flap. He pulled out a thin sheet of paper with shaking hands, noticing immediately that it wasn’t even a piece of stationery. It was torn out of an aeronautics book, or ledger, or something—jagged bite marks lined one edge where it had been ripped out of its binding, while the face of the paper was blank on one side save for half a typewritten phrase (…for your personal safety), and had a series of charts printed on the opposite one.

Lane turned to the blank side, and traced over the beginning of Joan’s handwritten letters with a fingertip. Longhand, and the scrawl was messier than usual. The familiar loops and lines of her script put butterflies in his stomach as he read.

_I’m in the hangar waiting for my plane so this has to be short—forgive me. I ruined everything. I was too afraid to tell you the truth and I can’t stand thinking how much it must have cost you. I’m sorry. You deserve better than cowardice. You deserve the best. Promise me that after everything is over, you’ll find someone who understands this._

_I thought if I kept my feelings to myself, going away wouldn't hurt as much, but I was wrong. I do love you, Lane, and I should have told you when I had the chance. I’d give anything to see your face & hear your voice & feel your—_

A large dash of ink—a scratched out word.

_Time to go. Stay safe, my love._

My love.

Knees trembling, Lane sank to the floor in an ungainly heap. His vision blurred to the point where he could no longer make out her beautiful words, and so he dropped the letter and put his hands over his face, rocked back and forth and sobbed like a child until he ached with sadness, until he felt he might choke from the cruelty of this pain.

She did love him. She loved him, and she'd been scared, and she might be dead.

And no one else cared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter split into two pieces instead of being one big finale. BUT I thought it was important to highlight that a) Lane is not doing so well with Joan being missing, mental-health-wise, and b) that fact's certainly not improved with the discovery of the reels at the front lines/their work on Holocaust footage compilation. ([February 1945](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/camp/faqs.html) was when a lot of the images from the newly-liberated concentration camps began to trickle back to the Allies.)
> 
> Also, I wanted to show off Lewis and his supreme dickishness. Because these two can never talk to each other and be normal, Lewis decides to introduce his wartime boyfriend to Lane via some stupid debauchery involving random girls. How could that plan not have backfired? Sigh.


	5. Chapter 5

Left. Right. Left. Right. Left—

A horn blared; she staggered backwards on the sidewalk with a small yelp, although she was at least a foot away from the curb. Nobody seemed to notice her panic; nobody looked twice. The red bus that had startled her was already slowing down to stop in front of the museum; she heard the heavy creak and whoosh of the brakes, followed by the doors opening. As a horde of tourists got out, chattering, laughing, snapping pictures, their shoes clacked against the cobblestones. She forced herself not to flinch at the sounds.

_Telephone. You need the telephone._

In front of her, the nearest phone booth was empty. She opened the door and stepped inside, but her hands were so numb and clumsy it took two tries to lift the receiver and put in a penny.

As the line rang through, her legs suddenly wobbled under her weight, and she pressed her forearm to the dirty glass, willed herself to keep standing.

_Just a little longer. Just a little longer._

A woman’s voice answered. “Dispatch.”

Joan closed her eyes, slumping against her braced hand so her forehead was pressed into the crook of her arm. “This is officer 2239643, calling for connection. Confirmation: valkyrie.”

“Stand by,” said the same voice.

A click. A rustling. If they didn’t answer in two more—

“Powell speaking.”

“I’m in Bloomsbury Square,” she let out a deep breath, “in a phone booth by the museum.”

No reply.

“Are you there?”

“Yes.” Powell cleared his throat. “Come at once—the George Street entrance. You do remember it?”

She let out a breath. “Yes.”

“Good.”

**

Striding with all the authority of his office, Cosgrove led Lane toward the usual conference room at a fast clip. Lane eyed the large group huddled outside the closed door with a furious scowl. God, it never ended. Now that Hitler was dead, everyone was waiting for the end of the war, trying to listen in on every little piece of conversation. Vultures.

“Whatever you do,” warned Cosgrove, as he knocked, and the door opened to admit them, “sit down first.”

Lane rolled his eyes as he followed the lad inside, so it wasn’t until he got a good look at the table that he understood what that meant. When he glanced past Cosgrove’s shoulder and to the rest of the usual group, he saw three men standing on their immediate left, obscuring one side of the large table. They paced back and forth and shifted their weight as they stood awkwardly, papers gripped in their hands. In the far corner, a young stenographer was scribbling away with a ballpoint pen, flipping the page in a manic fashion as she came to the end of her writing pad.

But it wasn’t until Powell moved aside that Lane finally saw her—the telltale flash of red hair glinting in the light—and for a moment, he thought he might cry out. His knees went weak, and he groped for the top of the table to stop himself from stumbling.

_Joan._

Oh, god, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. She’d lost one or two stone at least; her drawn face was chalk white, and the drab clothes she was wearing were ill-fitting, as if she’d swiped them from someone much larger. Her red hair was cut in a ragged bob; longer in the front, but so close-cropped in the back it looked as if it would hardly hold a couple of curls.

But she was here, and she was breathing, blinking, looking right through him, and his chest was cinched so tight just looking back at her. He couldn’t stop staring. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“You—” he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t move, he wanted to run to her, “you’re—alive.”

Her mouth was trembling, but she nodded, once, as if she understood all that he wanted to say. Palm flat on the table, she lifted her fingers – still so elegant and beautiful – and fluttered them slightly in his direction as she watched him. A wave. She was waving at him.

“I’m here,” she said quietly.

Lane pressed a fist to his mouth to muffle the noise that was trying desperately to tear its way out of his throat.

“Oh,” was all he whispered. He still could not move, the shock of it freezing his limbs like being dunked in ice water.

Powell followed Joan’s gaze, raised an eyebrow at Lane. “Agent Pryce, this is a full debrief. If you can’t comport yourself—”

“I can,” Lane blurted out, wiping his nose and eyes quickly. “Sorry.”

He held Joan’s gaze, and stretched out his arm across the table as far as it could go.

 _Never again._ _I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you._

“Very well,” Powell looked eager to return to the subject at hand. “Viper, if you will continue? Before the phone call, what did they tell you?”

Joan sighed, closed her eyes as if she wished she could do anything but talk about this. Lane wished he could sit next to her—hold her, touch her.

“They thought I was Churchill’s niece,” she said finally, staring at a spot somewhere on the far wall, next to the secretary’s head. “I had forged a personal letter, and, um, carried it on me. I had his handwriting from the—before I left. And the Gestapo—their local inspector was too afraid to kill me, in case it was true. They thought I could be—a—um, bargaining chip. So they took me to—to the camp.”

“Which one?” Ford asked.

Her voice was very hoarse. “Ravensbrück.”

“And how did you escape?”

“J—” Lane bit his tongue before he could call her by name, redirected his question to Ford. “Sir, why not let Viper write this down? Why force her to relive it?”

Everyone turned to stare at him.

He tried again. “Viper, surely it would be easier if you could—?”

“I can’t.” She held up her hand to prove it. He could see the visible tremor from clear across the room, and a lurch of dread surged through his stomach.

“Um,” she cleared her throat, “there were—ten of us, who escaped. There was a riot. They were taking a group to the gas chambers, and three Jewish women overpowered the front guard—we started running—”

Four hours later, everyone but Powell had left the room. Joan was practically nodding off at the table, so desperate to go home she was nearing her wits’ end. Sitting next to her, Lane was so angry he could hardly speak. He had reached the limit of his patience.

“I’ve told you everything. Everything.” She carded one hand through the front of her hair and pressed her palm to her forehead as if Powell’s reticence was beyond all belief. “Please let me go home.”

“I’m afraid they won’t be finished sweeping your flat until tomorrow evening,” Powell gave her an apologetic look. “You’re free to stay here, of course.”

God, how much strength had it taken just to get all the way back here, let alone withstand an interrogation of this magnitude?

“No, I can’t. I’m not going to do that. I need to go home, I can’t just—”

“Agent Harris, I do understand, but we are still not finished here—”

Lane cut off what was bound to be another stupid remark. “You certainly are. Joan, come home with me.”

Powell scoffed, like he couldn’t believe Lane’s nerve. Lane ignored him, looked Joan dead in the eye.

“You’ll be able to rest, and you can come back in a couple of days, when you’re feeling better. End of discussion.”

“For god’s sake, Pryce!” Powell opened his mouth as if to protest, but Lane held up a hand that said he wouldn’t hear another word.

“Try and stop me,” he snarled, and then turned to Joan, softening his voice and extending his hand. “You won’t stay here alone. Not tonight. Not ever.”

 _I can’t leave you,_ he didn’t say. _Please come home._

After a moment, she nodded, once.

An hour later, they were inside his apartment. He was slightly embarrassed that it wasn’t in better condition. There were still boxes and papers lining one side of the living room, although the sofa and sitting area were clear. He wished he’d thought to take out the garbage, or sweep up a bit, but if the price for having her here was Joan seeing a bit of his mess, Lane would pay it gladly.

“Take the bed,” he told her, after they’d changed into pajamas and he’d brought a blanket and several pillows out into the living room. He’d had to lend her a plain t-shirt to go with the bottoms, as his pajamas were enormous on her. Both pieces of clothing still swallowed her up whole. He tried not to notice how the cotton shirt hung loose around her reduced frame.

She just looked shattered. Lane knew she hadn’t slept or eaten properly in months. Her limp, brittle hair hung messy around the angles of her scrubbed clean face. Dark circles lined her eyes and her lips were chapped and bitten—as were, he suddenly noticed, her cuticles and fingers. No polish to brighten her hands. She just sat there in the middle of the sofa, staring out into space.

“Joan?” he prompted, and walked a little closer.

She didn’t move.

“Take the bed if you like,” he offered, stepping forward again, until he was almost directly beside her. “It’s much warmer.”

Finally, she glanced over, shook her head no.

Tentatively, Lane sat next to her, and reached out to caress her cheek with two fingers; he felt a funny little jolt in his stomach when she closed her eyes in response, and a little whimper caught in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“No, don’t. It’s all right.” Lane couldn’t bear to hear that. What in god’s name did she have to apologize for? Surviving? “I just—want you here. I need you here.”

_Let me take care of you._

She leaned forward, pressed her forehead against his cheek. Her hand came up to rest on his hip, just above the waistband of his pajamas, and for a couple of minutes, they stayed very still and quiet, Joan with her head bent and Lane focused intently on her breathing, on how she held herself so stiffly. Was this comforting? Did it help? What else did she need?

With a ragged breath, Joan moved away and scooted backwards toward the pillow so she could lie down on her left side. Immediately, Lane drew the thick comforter up to her chest, rubbed her hip a bit before he pulled his hands away and switched off the table lamp.

“If you need anything, I’ll just be—come and wake me.”

She sighed again, but did not close her eyes. “Okay.”

**

In the early hours, Lane dozed fitfully, and just before he woke up, he dreamed he heard someone with a peg leg limping across the floor—a great stomping sound followed by the scratch of wood against wood.

A loud _thump_ like a drawer banging closed woke him up and made him realize – he hadn’t dreamed the noise. In the kitchen, he heard someone coughing, and when he darted out of bed to see what had happened, he saw Joan standing in front of the counter with a paring knife in one hand and a large cucumber in the other—wearing nothing but his t-shirt, whose hem fell just below the swell of her hips. He wrenched his eyes away.

On the floor underneath the small dining table knelt a familiar figure, wearing shabby brown trousers, a dark waistcoat, and a white collared shirt. He was poking around near the wall, in the middle of a great coughing fit.

“For god’s sake, Lewis!” Lane directed an annoyed glance at Joan, although she didn’t turn around to see it. The man must be stone drunk. He never visited unless he’d had a few whiskeys. “How did you even get in?”

“Key—mat—” he was still coughing.

“Will you come out from there?” Lane tried to lower his voice, as Joan still had not moved from the counter. He walked closer to find she hadn’t even begun to cut the veg yet, just stood there with the tip of the knife poised over it.

“Dropped a—” Lewis wheezed _,_ “—Christ—”

“He lost a cufflink,” Joan supplied quietly, still concentrating very hard on her hands. After a moment, she slowly sawed the top off the cucumber, but did not move to cut another piece.

Lane did not like the way her hands were trembling. He supposed this was the reason for her delay. “Here, love. Let me.”

She put the knife down with a visibly relieved look. “Do you have plasters?”

“Yes.” Perhaps that was the reason for her distress; she’d simply nicked her finger. “Vanity cupboard—second shelf.”

He rinsed the knife and went back to slicing the cucumber, and it was only after half a minute that he realized what was making him wary: Lewis, the most garrulous person ever known to man, had still not said a single word since Joan had left the room. Instead, he stood motionless, breathing loudly through his mouth, and watching Lane chop up veg. Like an idiot.

“You must be drunk,” Lane said again, shaking his head.

“No, but I ought to be.”

When he looked over, Lane saw his brother’s mouth was set in a deep frown.

Lane just sighed. He had no idea what that comment was supposed to mean. “Well, don’t just stand there. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Then I apologize.”

This time, Lane knocked a piece of cucumber into the floor, and decided to put his knife down before he had a chance to drop it on a toe. Why was his brother apologizing? When on earth was the last time those words had left his mouth in that particular order?

“What?”

His brother made a face, shrugged, and then turned around to open the icebox. “Have you eaten any of your rations? There are half a carton of eggs in here. Whole rasher of bacon. Cheese. Milk.”

Least this was some semblance of normal. Lane suppressed a retort. He was used to taking most meals at work—and the less said about that, the better. “Well, cook something, then. Make yourself useful instead of just standing about.”

Joan padded out of the bedroom in her bare feet, now wearing one of his collared shirts, a different pair of pajama bottoms, and his flannel robe. When he raised a questioning eyebrow—secretly pleased to see her in them—she gave him a weak smile that barely reached her eyes.

“I got cold.”

And then he felt terrible. “Sorry. I ought to have – let me fetch you a blanket.”

Lewis stuck to his word about the cooking, so there was a nice spread for breakfast. But even after they sat down to eat, there still wasn’t much conversation. Joan drank two cups of tea with gusto, but did not eat all her eggs, which worried Lane terribly. He wondered if he should make her a broth. Wasn’t she hungry? What else might she eat? Perhaps he could buy a bit more veg for her with the coupons that had been going unused.

Meanwhile, Lewis was still too quiet, and the prolonged chewing noises from his end of the table were getting on Lane’s nerves.

“So, little brother,” Lewis glanced at Joan, stabbed at a forkful of eggs, “did you and your lady meet at work, or something?”

“I really don’t think—”

“Yes,” said Joan.

Oh. So she was going to—create her own alias. Right.

“Ah. And what is it that you do for the bank, Miss—”

“Harris,” she supplied, which startled Lane so much he had to force himself to keep a straight face. “I’m a liaison for American clients.”

“Lot of travel involved there, I suppose. Or was, until recently.” Lewis said around another mouthful. “When did you start living together, precisely?”

Lane held up a hand. She didn’t need to be cross-examined, for god’s sake. What was Lewis playing at? “That’s quite enough, thank you.”

“Darling, she’s wearing all your pajamas, and before that, I nearly saw her bits. We’re hardly strangers.”

Lane went red, and had to hide his face. Joan made a vaguely amused noise.

“You’re Navy, aren’t you?”

“Why? Did little brother mention it?”

The two of them began to chat a bit—mostly about Lewis and his career, which Lane was sure the man adored—but as conversation was winding down, he noticed a small spot on Lewis’s collar, and had to interrupt.

“You realise you’re bleeding?” He gestured to his brother’s neck; Lewis brushed the side of his throat with two fingers, frowned at them when they came away with a small swipe of red.

“Hmph.”

If the idiot had tried to use a razor while intoxicated, it was his own fault. But he hadn’t even got half his whiskers, from what Lane could tell.

“Must’ve cut yourself shaving.”

“I’ll get a bandage,” Joan offered, and quickly went to find the box.

She did not come back. Lane cleared the table, washed the dishes in the sink, and was wondering if he ought to go and check on her, when from somewhere near the sofa, he heard pages rustle as they were turned rapidly, one after the next. When Lane walked over to see which book his brother was reading, the title gripped in Lewis’s hands made him freeze in his tracks.

_What to Name the Baby._

Lane’s throat went dry, not sure which excuse to blurt first. Had he written anything in it? Joan’s private cipher, or any notations? He didn’t think so. Thankfully, Lewis wouldn’t be able to read the cipher, even if some trace of it was there. Perhaps he was worried because of the implications of the cover—paired with what he’d seen of Joan. Half-naked and wearing his clothes, and now there was a baby book in his flat. It did seem suspicious.

“Erm, that—it isn’t what it looks like, I promise.”

Lewis snapped the book shut, and set it aside onto the end table, as if it were something spoiled. “Course not.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose you’re too busy to come out for a pint. A few of us are going for an early lunch. Well. Me and Bryant, anyway.”

“I don’t think I can, with my schedule. You see, I’m already, erm, late for work.”

Never mind that it was eight o’clock, and he was clearly not in a rush. He wasn’t even dressed. Lane nearly felt bad for refusing, as Lewis had such a strange, almost wistful expression on his face. Like he was debating whether or not to say his next words aloud, which was so self-aware for him that it bordered on concerning.

“But—but maybe—some other time,” Lane offered quickly.

This seemed to put his brother to rights. Lewis summoned up a smile, clapped him on the shoulder, and pushed the book back into his hands.

“Well, I should hope so.”

He strolled to the door and opened it, but then knelt down to fix one mussed shoelace. Lane couldn’t help noticing that the spare key was still in place next to Lewis’s heel. You could see the raised indentation in the carpet. He wasn’t sure how that could be possible. How could he have gotten in without the key? Perhaps he’d left the door unlocked?

“Give your girl my best,” was all Lewis said after straightening up, with a nod toward the bedroom. “Quite extraordinary.”

Lane’s mouth dropped open. His brother had never liked any of the (three other) girls he’d gone out with—let alone approved of them sticking around. Not that there had been much chance of that with anyone but Becca.

“I—well, I—”

Lewis ambled away before Lane could finish the sentence.

**

Later in the day, Agent Calvet stopped by with a few of Joan’s clothes—or perhaps clothes she’d got from the agent closet, it was hard to tell. Although he appreciated the clear effort she’d gone to, and made sure to thank her profusely, Joan said very little, and could not be drawn out, even by the kindest of words.

Lane continued worrying through tea and dinner and even after they went to bed. He worried so much he could hardly sleep for it, and when he finally did shut his eyes, his sleep was so fitful he could hardly separate the dreams from reality.

He woke to a hitch of breath in his ear—a warm, soft body pressed all against him. His eyes flew open in the darkness.

“J—Joan—”

Two fingers touched his mouth as if to quiet his protest, gentle but firm, while her other hand continued to stroke him, and the relief that flooded Lane’s senses was sharp and overwhelming. Oh, god, it was lovely, being with her. He’d forgotten how much.

“Tell me you’re real,” he begged, kissing those beautiful fingers.

“I’m here,” she breathed, over and over again, as she reached between them, guided him inside her. He groaned; his hands dug into her thighs. His head fell back against the pillow and his eyes tipped closed as she took him all in. Lane couldn’t speak at all, now, and as they began to move, the noises that tore from his throat were more animal than human—raw, needy, raspy. By the time he was on the edge, she was still repeating her mantra, voice so low she could hardly be heard.

“—I’m here I’m here I’m here, oh, god I’m—”

“Oh,” Lane grunted and thrashed and gripped her hips until the skin reddened and then whitened under his hands, “ah—ah—ah—”

Joan yanked his hand up to her breast. On instinct, he plucked at her nipple, once, twice; the third time, she let out a whine, and her entire body seized up, her spine bowing and her cunt clenching around him—perfect, perfect.

He whimpered when he spilled into her, gasped out these great shuddering moans as he trembled and quivered under her, and after he came all he could do was reach out to stroke the tops of her shaking legs. So good. So good. Oh, yes, oh, my darli—

When he woke, light was pouring into the room from the small half window. The duvet was on the floor. He was naked. Confused. Alone.

The shower was running.

Lane squinted against the bright light, stumbled from his bed and into the toilet to find a large puddle of water on the floor. Nearby, Joan sat naked in the floor of the tub with the curtain open, the spray turned on and going full blast. She was soaked and shivering, her mouth a little blue.

All the adrenaline of the night before—the relief he took in touching her, the wash of hope that made him certain she would be better in the morning—flitted away, replaced by guilt and horror. He’d made her feel worse.

“Can—can you hear me, love?”

Joan looked at him, although she wasn’t quite looking _at him,_ just somewhere near his shoulder. Her hair was plastered to her face like the twisted tail of a wet rag, and her voice was pitched flat, toneless. “I have to go in.”

“No, you don’t.” His mouth was dry. He couldn’t think. “Please, don’t. They—they can’t make you.”

“You don’t understand,” she said in the same voice, as he stepped into the tub and carefully sat down in front of her, felt the shock of icy water on his legs and back as he placed a towel around her shoulders. “I have to.”

**

It took fifteen minutes for her to agree to get out of the tub, but once she did, it was as if the incident had never happened; she got dressed quickly, in the silk blouse and dark skirt Megan had brought before, put on a bit of makeup, and even pinned up her hair with a scarf.

Lane still didn’t understand why she wanted to go in, but no matter how many times he broached the subject, she would not be moved. It wasn’t until they were inside the office and he saw her clenched fists and tense jaw and where they were going that he realized—she was angry. She wanted to confront Powell.

Would she scream at him? Berate him? God forbid—try to fight him?

“Joan,” he said, low, as they strode down the last hall, and she waved a hand to Cosgrove, a bland smile on her face, “don’t do this. They’ll have your career.”

“Shut up,” she said quietly.

Cosgrove let them in. Joan sailed inside so fast Lane had to rush to keep up.

Inside, four men were in the middle of what appeared to be a committee meeting, Powell and Ford, plus two others. Lane had never seen either one of these chaps before; the older man wore square-framed glasses, had a shock of silver hair, and a craggy face, while the younger one wore a turtlenecked sweater, and had a hangdog look about him.

“You son of a bitch,” Joan hissed, the second she got Powell in her sights.

The men looked up, alarmed; she grabbed the back of the nearest empty chair and flung it toward the corner with one hand. It didn’t sail through the air, just scooted awkwardly on the hardwood before tipping over.

Lane immediately went to block her path, hands up and out between them. “Joan, don’t.”

“Get out of my way, Lane,” she snapped.

“Not if you’re going to hurt someone.”

“He knew where I was the entire time,” she spat, pointing an accusing finger at Powell. “He knew, and he left me for dead!”

“Agent Harris,” came Powell’s disbelieving reproach, like he was a shocked father, disappointed by his daughter’s careless remark.

Lane didn’t look away from her. “What—what are you talking about?”

“When I surrendered myself, the Germans said they placed a phone call to find out if I was lying. All this time, I assumed it was a ruse, because they came back and said no one cared about saving me, that I’d die slowly for my stupidity—”

“Agent Harris, this is—”

“—but when I debriefed, you asked me exactly that question. _What did you do after the phone call?_ ” She locked eyes with Lane. “I never told them a thing. I never mentioned Powell or the SOE. They said they called Whitehall—”

“This is—”

“And if Whitehall gets news about a missing agent, or a suspicious phone call, they report it to intelligence, to the War Department. That’s protocol. And if you knew where I was, if you _talked_ _to the Germans on your own_ , and you did nothing...” her voice trailed off, the question obvious.  _Why would you do that? Why keep good information from everyone?_

Powell had stopped protesting. Lane glanced back, once, and saw a terrible, telling gleam in the other man’s face.

“Oh, god,” Lane said. “You knew.”

The weight of it seemed to add extra lines to Powell’s face.

Joan let out a howl of rage; Lane whipped back around just as she launched herself at Powell.

He intervened; they hit the carpet with a grunt, and his training kicked in—parry, block, disarm, delay, don’t hurt her, don’t hurt her. They wrestled together for a long few seconds before she was able to get a real blow in; with one fluid motion, she flipped him off her, rolled up onto one knee, and kicked him in the center of the chest with her other foot. As he struggled to catch his breath, she seized her chance with the others.

Ford went down first, dropped by a blow to the face; his weight hit the ground like a wet sandbag—

“Stand down, Agent! Stand down now!” Cosgrove was inside the room with his gun up, pointed at Joan, and Lane was using all of his training to keep everyone from panicking.

“Don’t shoot!” he commanded. “Get the men out. She won’t—she won’t hurt anyone. Just let me talk to her. That’s all she needs.”

“Pryce, she needs a goddamn doctor,” Cosgrove snapped, but he was already motioning for the first two men to leave the room. They filed out behind him, and then it was Powell’s turn.

Lane did not like the way Joan was eyeing Cosgrove and that gun, and stepped between her through line, so she’d have to hit him to shoot Powell.

“Joan, look at me. I know you’re angry, and you have every reason to be, but you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t want to _kill Powell_ ,” Joan growled with an incredulous look, like she knew what Lane was too afraid to say. “I want him to know exactly what his arrogance has cost. I want him to remember what a fucking coward he is. He’s the head of this goddamn branch, and he doesn’t give a shit about any of his agents. He only cares about the title and the big office where he can fuck a baby into Maisie Carlborough in private! He told me he wanted me to be a killing machine— _his_ machine, for king and country. And he condemned me to die rather than risk smearing his precious reputation!”

Cosgrove lowered his gun—Lane wasn’t sure why until he noticed, out of the corner of one eye, that Ford had turned his head. The man’s eyes were open, and he seemed to have heard everything—was waiting to hear more, even.

Powell did not notice, face scarlet with rage. “Traitorous snake—you’ll never see another mission after this, never, _so long as I hold power in this office!_ ”

Floored, Joan fell silent, and so Powell stalked out past them both, slamming the door behind him. At the sound, she put two hands to her face; Lane watched her very carefully before moving to help Ford up from the floor.

“I’ll call for the doctor,” was all Ford said to Lane before exiting the room, with Cosgrove at his heels.

Once the door closed again, Lane strode forward and locked it, then turned back to Joan. She still had her palms pressed against her ashen face, murmuring to herself.

“It didn’t work. I thought I could—but maybe they all knew—maybe they all wanted me dead.”

“Don’t say that. Of—of course they didn’t.”

“Does it matter? Everyone knows that I should have died—”

“But you didn’t die, Joan!” Lane bellowed, grabbing for her arm in a panicked way. “You’re still here!”

She struck him across the face with an open hand. The force of her slap echoed around the room, and when they met each other’s eyes again, shame and fear tangled together in their gazes.

“Oh, god.” Joan covered her mouth, the next two words emerging in a muffled whisper. Her free hand was shaking so violently he could see the tremors down her entire arm. “I—I’m sorry.”

There was terror in her eyes; whether it was for him or for her, he couldn’t say, but he knew she had lashed out because she was frightened. He didn’t want to imagine what memory could have frightened her so badly.

Gingerly, Lane touched his cheek with his fingertips to make sure it was only stung. It throbbed angrily, and he could still feel the heat where her palm had struck him. When he spoke, he tried to be calm, although his voice shook.

“Joan, it’s all—”

 _“It’s not all right!”_ she shouted, and the words seemed to take something out of her, because as soon as they passed her lips, they seemed to sap all her strength away. She practically swayed on her feet. One of her hands reached for him, grasped blindly, and he stepped forward and took it without hesitation.

“It’s not all right,” she repeated softly, trembling. “Oh—”

She crouched forward with one arm wrapped around her waist, mouth open in a soundless wail, and for a moment he was terrified that she was going to fall, so he drew her into him. They stood there motionless until she began to cry in earnest, was so overcome her legs would no longer hold her, and then they sank together into the floor, sitting just underneath the lip of the mahogany table. She slumped sideways into his arms and cried savage sobs into the shoulder of his jacket, while he swiped fat tears from his own cheeks, and hated himself for his cluelessness.

It’s not all right. She’s not all right.

Outside, someone kept knocking and knocking at the door, tapping restlessly at the wood. No one came to let them in, and eventually it stopped. 

 

 

_six months later_

 

 

When Lane got home, snow drifts had piled up around the front door of his building, but he found a letter from Joan waiting for him on the rug, and immediately opened it to see how things were going for her this week.

After the debacle with Powell—which had cost him control of the branch, at least—she’d elected to take some time outside of London. SOE had a station by the coast, with some doctors who had already done good work with shellshocked patients, and so she went there in order to rest and recuperate.

The letters between them were awkward at first. Lane wrote immediately to make sure Joan had settled in all right, but she was hesitant to put the details of her own days into writing, and went so far as to have portions of her letters censored. Eventually, that fear waned, or else she decided the risk of being vulnerable in print was acceptable, because gradually the black marks lessened, and soon enough it was as if they were talking in the same room again.

They wrote each other constantly, now, and had phone calls every now and again. Sometimes her letters made him heartsick, sometimes happy, but he knew she had done the right thing by leaving—and in this, he was able to bear up her absence for a little while longer.

He turned his attention to the paper.

_Dear Lane,_

_This morning, I hiked to the lighthouse, and got up to the top of the path just after sunrise. I wish you could see the view from the cliffs. The landscape really is beautiful once you get above the roar of the highway, even in winter when everything is so bare. Sometimes I spend hours just walking along the dirt paths, staring out at the ocean. I think about the country across the horizon, about Calais and Paris and Marseilles, and always being under the thumb of the Jerries. Now I eat when I want and sleep when I want. Except for the doctors, I feel like I’m starting to have control over my own life. Hard to remember the last time that happened._

The closing sentences put a jolt in his stomach every time he read them.

_Not sure when I’m coming home, but they say it may be soon. Hope that’s true. I feel calm about the future for the first time in a long time. And right now I miss you more than I can say._

She signed in the usual way. _Love always, Joan._

He dashed off two quick pages in reply before going to bed that night.

_Please don’t worry about me right now, my darling. I’m so glad things are looking up for you, despite all that’s happened…. Know that I love you. Come home when you can. Sending you tender thoughts and kisses in return._

Unfortunately, he fell asleep before he could actually post this message, which caused him to rush to the letterbox come morning, and put him ten minutes behind his usual schedule, which soured his mood even further.

Morale at the office had been low as of late, and the current rumour was that their funding was due to be revoked at any moment. No one could understand it—and even worse, no one at the higher levels could explain why such a measure was being considered at all. Lane had actually shouted at Ford about the planned cuts, but the other man had simply shrugged his shoulders and said they must not make plans based on rumours. Things would be sorted out in due time.

This had done nothing to reassure Lane about the agency’s future. In fact, it had only made him more anxious. He didn’t know what he would do, should the worst happen. What work was he qualified for? Would he be transferred into another agency? Would he go into the civilian sector? Would he go the diplomatic route? Would Joan?

It wasn’t until he was thumbing through the array of newspapers to find a Standard not completely bent out of shape that a familiar voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

“Hello, love.”

_Oh, my god._

He straightened up as if in a daze, and whipped around to face Joan, who was radiant in a light blue dress that brought out the same shade in her blue-green eyes. She was wearing her dark coat and black oxford heels, now polished to sheen, and her short hair was pinned up, with one large red curl escaping out from underneath her jaunty green hat. Although she was still a bit too thin, the pink in her cheeks and the upward twitch of her mouth told him things were much improved.

Around them, other commuters were politely pushing through to reach the row of newspapers, mumbling sorrys and do excuse me’s as they passed—utterly, utterly blind to how long either of them had waited for this moment, and how truly extraordinary it was.

Lane wanted to tell her how glad he was to see her, but found that he could hardly speak for happiness. All he could do was reach for her gloved hand, and for a moment they stood there together, clutching each other’s hands, staring at the wooden wall of the newsstand—wet with salt and slush and still plastered with shabby war posters—and blinking back grateful tears.

“I just came to get the paper,” he said in a hoarse voice, swiping at his eyes under his glasses. “On my way in. Do you, erm, come here often?”

Joan laughed, a little watery sound, and squeezed his hand a little tighter as she spoke. “Just passing by. I’m moving here soon.” She cleared her throat, and when he glanced over and noticed how she was looking at him—affection brimming in her eyes, and a genuine smile now on her face—it nearly brought him to ruin all over again. She was so incredible in every way, and now she was here with him.

She’d finally come home.

“I’m Joan,” she said slyly, and her smile widened as she continued. “You know, we were never properly introduced.”

Lane found he could still laugh even at a time like this, and let the feeling wash over him, taking his free hand and putting it over their clasped ones.

“Yes. Erm. I—I suspect you are right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joan's escape story is based partly on [Odette Hallowes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odette_Hallowes), and partly on a failed revolt that happened [within the concentration camp in March of 1945.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravensbr%C3%BCck_concentration_camp#Death_march_and_liberation)
> 
> I also had to figure out a way to get Powell out of the way, and his being corrupt/making things personal in addition to annoying seemed to be the fastest way to do it. :) Hope this chapter wasn't too depressing.
> 
> This story has been so much fun to write, and I've had a blast. I want to say I'm done writing in this universe but I don't think I am. [cue card: Red Viper will return...]


End file.
